PAGE PAGE NOTESOF THE WEEK 433 ...... Books AND PERSONS. By Jacob Tonson ...... *.. 445 FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad ...... * 435 THEOLOGY.-VI. By M. E. Oxon...... 446 THEPARTY SYSTEM.--I. By H. Belloc ...... 436 RECENTVERSE. By Jack Collings Squire ...... 447 JUDGES AND THE ADMINISTRATIONOF JUSTICE. By C. Stanhope 437 DRAMA:THE WITNESS FOR THE DEFENCE-- ROCOCO. By Ashley Dukes 449 NIETZSCHEAND WOMAN. By V. W. Eyre 439 ...... LETTERSTO THE EDITORFROM G. K. Chesterton, S. Verdad, THE DON IN ARCADIA ...... 440 Arthur Russell, E. Belfort Bax, Arthur P. Grenfell, AMERICANNOTES. By Juvenal ...... 441 Upton Sinclair, Felix Grendon, Mary Gawthorpe, F. G. MACHIAVELLION RELIGION, WAR,AND PEACE...... 443 Montagu Powell, E. H. Visiak, C. E. Bechhöfer, G. T. UNEDITEDOPINIONS ...... *-- 444 Wrench ...... 450

All communications intended for the Editor should be addressed to THE NEW AGE, 38, Cursitor Street, take it as certain that its tactical object was to E. C. strengthen the Liberal Party for the subsequent discus- sion of the Second Chamber. *** NOTES OF THE WEEK. Regarding the practical effects of the Bill, if and when it is passed, we are not so sure that these have IT is a pity the House of Commons was too boorish been equally clearly foreseen. With one certain effect to hear the remainder of Mr. Balfour’s disquisition on we dealt at length last week, namely, the further con- the value of the hereditary principle in a democratic centration of power within the Cabinet. This probable community. That good breeding has a value and is consequence of the restriction of the Lords’ veto has commonly recognised by the people to have a value is been emphasised now by many speakers and writers. as clear as the contrary is theoretic. In planning a Lord Robert Cecil for one, in the current “Saturday Re- constitution it is therefore well to take facts into ac- view,” writes on the Party System in the same tone as count before theories ; and Mr. Balfour’s little lecture, Mr. Belloc. Lord Hugh Cecil suggested last week in nipped in the bud as it was, did deal with facts. Un- the House of Commons that in view of the threatened fortunately, however, neither the House generally nor Cabinet dictatorship members should in future vote in his own party in particular was inclined to forgo their the House by secret ballot. Mr. Austen Chamberlain daily fisticuffs and manœuvres. Mr. Balfour had to was equally precise. Speaking in the House on apologise to the one for leaving only for a moment Monday he said : “We are told the present situation is “the ordinary interchange of friendly blows with the intolerable, because the House of Lords can force a Government,” and to the other his messages, we under- dissolution upon this House. It is this very power, stand, have been unwelcome. Bismarck was once declared to be intolerable when exercised by the House asked what he would do if an English army entered of Lords, which enables the Government to hold its Holland. His reply was that he would have it arrested. majority in the hollow of its hand. That is the threat Similarly we are disposed to call for the arrest of the which they can hold in terrorem over members under Unionists in their threatened depredations on the Con- such circumstances that a recalcitrant member, giving stitution. These go far beyond the bounds of anything a vote which brings his party to defeat, and so forcing dreamed of by Liberals, and, in addition, have the a dissolution, knows that whatever be the chances of defect of hopeless self-division. It is only after pass- his party he has very little chance of returning to this ing the various utterances of the Unionist leaders House. ..It applies to all parties. ..The tendency through many alembics that we finally discover what of Government, as it becomes more democratic, is to the Unionists, are really after. The Liberal plan, on put even greater power into the hands of Government.” the other hand, is clear and definite, and, so far, shows These, however, are not the only proofs we have that no shadow of turning. Messrs. Belloc and Chesterton’s book on “The Party **+ System” is getting home, or that one of the probable effects of the Parliament Bill is now beginning to be Of the primary part of the Liberal plan there is, discerned and feared. There are many others, and we indeed, no possible doubt, since it has been printed and would advise our readers to keep an eye open for then. discussed and read a second time in the House of *** Commons. What its real motive may be or what its practical effects will prove to be are matters still of What, however, we would remark is that neither the some speculation. Mr. Haldane has thrown some clear plans of the Government nor the nebulous plans of light on the first by his remark that the Parliament the Unionists contain any remedy whatever for this Bill was necessary to put the Liberals in a position to descriable evil. What, for example, is the Govern- negotiate on fairly equal terms with the Unionists. If ment’s plan for reconstructing the Second Chamber, this means anything, it means that subsequent to the which, it is presumed, will act as a check on the passage of the Bill a second conference will be held to Cabinet? Mr. Asquith has defined the conditions with discuss the recomposition of the Second Chamber. his usual precision and lucidity. They are as follows : That, doubtless, was the intention from the very first, (a) The Commons is to remain predominant in legisla- and we have only to congratulate the front benches on tion ; (b) the functions of the Second Chamber are to be the foresight they have exercised. It is no wonder, confined to consultation, revision and delay; (c) its after this, that the proceedings of the first Conference numbers must be relatively small; (d) it must not be should be kept secret, or that the method of conference composed on a hereditary basis ; (e) it must be non- should continue to be regarded as invaluable. So far party. All this may be admirable in theory, but in then as the motive of the Parliament Bill goes, we may practice we do not perceive much hope in such a 434

Chamber of effectively checking the absolutism of any will advocate its substitute and desperate successor, the Cabinet, whether Liberal or Tory. The first two con- Referendum. Since we do not yet belong to those with- ditions follow, of course, from the Parliament Rill, and out hope (neither, strange to say, does Mr. Belloc, to would be answered by the present House of Lords judge from his letter in the NEWAGE last week), we are without its absolute veto. But the crux of Mr. compelled to rule out the Referendum proposal from the Asquith’s plan is the elective character (including, we catalogue of good elements in the Unionist reform suppose, the nominated) of the composition of the new scheme. Second Chamber ; and of this we have only to repeat *** our previous comment that one elected chamber is no When, however, we examine the Unionist scheme, better that another elected chamber. Unless a Second bones and beak and all, we see no more security in it as Chamber differs from the first in kind, it does not differ a check on the Cabinet than in the Liberal scheme. effectively at all. Condition (d), the non-partisan char- Even if it were possible to persuade the country to acter of the Second Chamber, is an impossible product accept such a haggis of a Chamber as the Unionists of an elected Senate or of a Senate whose members are propose, its dependence on the Front Benches would nominated by the Cabinet of the day. still be complete. The only element in it, namely, the *** hereditary element, that would not owe its election to. The failure of Mr. Asquith’s logical and coherent plan the Cabinet, and consequently need not, unless volun- of reform throws us back on the illogical and incoherent tarily, obey the Party Whips, would assuredly be re- adumbrations of plan which move among the Unionists. duced to impotence. That is to say, the only element Reduced to their common factors the various Unionist conceivably independent would be robbed of its present schemes amount to this: a mixed Second Chamber, predominance. On the other hand, the Party nominees, consisting of hereditary, nominated and elected mem- disguised as Crown nominees, returned and discredited bers ; joint conferences between the two Chambers in proconsuls and the like, would be masters of the situa- case of dispute; and resort to the Referendum when tion, and their subservience to one or other of the Cabinet such disputes cannot be jointly settled. (We make Parties would be complete. Doubtless, their uniform a present of this summary to Unionists in the dark as to tendency would be to obey the Tory rather than the the policy of their party. The above is it, and we have Liberal whips, but that is just what we want to avoid. only arrived at its formulation after hours of distilla- For, as we said last week, it matters nothing to Cabinet tion.) Now at the first blush we are bound to say that absolutism whether one or the other Whip is uniformly the Unionist plan, here crystallised, is at least no worse obeyed. It is only calculability that lends itself ta than the Liberal plan. Like the Liberal plan, it contains absolutism. **U both good and bad suggestions. We frankly regard as We may be accused in all this of darkening counsel good the retention of the hereditary element, for reasons by criticism and of refusing any positive suggestions. which Mr. Balfour would have given if an impatient Nobody who reads these notes with as much sense of, House of Commons had permitted him. We equally responsibility as they are written with, will, however, frankly regard as good, or, at least, as inevitable,, joint charge us with shirking the duty of advice when it is Conferences between the two Houses when Bills are in called for. But until out of the swirl of partisan discus- dispute. As a matter of fact, explicitly allowed or not sions some definite current of thought begins to form, or allowed, such conferences have not only taken place in some public desire grows articulate, our only course is the past, but even should the Parliament Bill become to observe and to criticise. Signs are not wanting now an Act and no Change is made in the Lords, they will that both these conditions are beginning to be produced, be necessary in the future. It is absurd to suppose that though the results are not what many people expected, the Lords are always and invariably wrong when they or rather apprehended, they might be. Far from the differ from the Commons. They neither always have main stream of thought or the public mood issuing as been nor always will they be. The joint Conference is the result of the whole turmoil in an extreme and revolu- a necessary piece of machinery, and its recognition may tionary intention, the very contrary is the case. The ils well be publicly made as privately winked at. So public generally and, consequently, the real drift of far, in fact, we do not see anything seriously wrong opinion, are towards a more moderate change than with the Unionist proposals. It is only when we come politicians looked for. Instead of the Veto discussions to the Referendum condition that we really find an ele- leading, as Lord Rosebery feared they might, to popu- ment in their scheme to which we totally object. lar demands for the abolition of the peerage and after- *** wards of the Crown, both these institutions emerge from It passes our comprehension that men as politically the smoke practically untouched if not even wise as Messrs. Belloc and Chesterton, not to name strengthened. The dimensions of the objects of the Lord Hugh Cecil and the rest who have written on the campaign prove, in fact, to have been tremendously subject, should still fail to realise the distinction between exaggerated; and at the present moment it is strictly the delegate and the representative. In their book on accurate to state that public opinion is resolved on re- “The Party System” (p. 17), the former remark :- garding the whole dispute, not as an affair of Constitu- “ The extraordinary capacity of politicians for tying tional importance, but as a squabble about the internal themselves in inextricable knots of confused thinking procedure of the two Houses. Given the Parliament was never better shown than in the current saying that Bill, which on the whole appears a fair Liberal demand, a representative should not be a mere delegate.’’ public opinion will be completely satisfied in the matter. Rousseau, their master, knew better than this, for he *Y* says in his “Contrat Social ” (iii. c. xv.) :--“Les Now if we were theorists simply, we might easily be deputés du peuple ne sont donc ni ne peuvent être ses disposed to object to such public moderation ; but représentants.” “ The essence,” says Sir John Mac- taking our stand on €he Representative system there is donell in an admirable article in the current (‘Contem- nothing to do but to acquiesce in what is, after all, the porary,” “the essence of the representative system. . . practical commonsense of the whole community. And is the trust of the many in the worthiest available. It is to what does it lead in the way of conclusions? We offer this trust which gives the representative government the following not simply as our advice, but as the views what is best in aristocracy without its drawbacks. . . . which are already beginning to prevail among the mass And this element the Referendum and Initiative would of our countrymen: (a) to pass the Parliament Bill as weaken.” Is there any doubt about it? On the con- quickly as possible and with as little fuss on the part of trary, we may confidently say that the introduction of the Lords as may be. The change is not worth creating the Referendum marks as well as hastens the failure of peers tooproduce or compelling their creation to resist; the Representative system. It was so in America, for (b) to add to it, if necessary, explicit conferences be- only as a remedy against the obvious failure of Repre- tween the two Houses in cases of dispute ; (c) to leave sentation was the Referendum introduced there. And the whole question of the reform of the House of Lords it will be so in England. Only those who believe that until such time as experience of the working of the Representative Government has completely broken down Constitution under the Parliament Act shall prove re- in England, like Humpty Dumpty. never to be restored, form to be necessary. Finally we are quite convinced 435

that while both Houses still maintain a considerable powerful-are likely to bring pressure to bear upon the amount of public respect and trust, both Houses need Cabinet to refuse consent to the means proposed by what may be called an internal spiritual reform to ensure Djavid Bey. There are, however, other reasons why a them retaining and increasing it. When the Parliament British Government, Liberal or Conservative, is not Bill is passed, let the Lords renew their ancient motto likely to be favourably impressed by this solution of of Noblesse oblige, and endeavour to live up to it. Let the Turkish financial difficulties. the House of Commons (we are not thinking of the J have all along indicated in these columns that Cabinet) resume its independence, if only by the forma- finance was and would continue to be the stumbling- tion of a single group of a dozen members. That is our block of the Young Turk reformers;. and I am sorry to advice, and to work towards it is our policy. say that the speech made by Djavid Bey has not led me to change my views in this respect. Let us turn to France. M. Briand’s resignation was Foreign Affairs. brought about by intrigues. The religious question, of which everyone in France, barring a few fanatics, is. By ‘S. Verdad. heartily sick, had really nothing to do with it; but the Radical-Socialists were dissatisfied with the drastic I BELIEVE I am correct in stating that this was the first measures adopted by the Government to crush the rail- paper in Great Britain to refer to the strained relations way strike. They determined to bring about the between Italy and Austria, and to sum up the fighting Premier’s fall, and the question of the secularising of strength of each country. Since I wrote on this matter the lay schools was thought to be as good a pretext as a few weeks ago, it will have been remarked that the any. Austrian Foreign Minister, Count von Aehrenthal, has gone away for a two months’ holiday, his place being When I am writing about French politics, I feel in- taken in the meantime by the Austrian Ambassador to clined to wish that Messrs. Belloc and Chesterton had Turkey, the Marquis Pallavicini. lengthened their admirable volume on the party system by an additional chapter setting forth the disadvantages While it is true that Count von Aehrenthal has been of parliamentary groups. I have made an exhaustive exerting himself a great deal recently, his state of study of French politics, and I have every reason for health does not require such a lengthened vacation at believing that the group system, there at all events, is this time of the year. He has been sent away on the worse than the English party system by a long way ; “ advice” of the German Government, which was clear- and this is saying a good deal. Unfortunately, it would sighted enough to understand the trouble that would take up too much space, and doubtless prove rather dull ultimately ensue as a result of the alarming tension reading, if I were to set forth these reasons here; but, between the other parties to the triple Alliance. It is whatever the theory may be, a glaring example of the thought that the absence of Count von Aehrenthal will actual effect is seen in the present state of the Chamber help to smooth things down. It is more than probable, of Deputies. The attitude taken up by M. Briand however, that the Count’s state of health will result in towards recent problems in France, including the rail- his resignation before the two months are up. way strike, met with the cordial approval of at least In view of the reports which have already appeared three-fourths of the nation. On the other hand, there in the papers, I need do little more than draw attention is hardly a name in the new Cabinet which can inspire to the Greco-Turkish incident. Two Turkish soldiers, anything but suspicion and-to those who are ac- having, apparently unthinkingly, crossed the Greek quainted with the antecedents of many of the Ministers frontier, were carried off by a squad of Greek troops -disgust. The single exception is M. Delcassé. and shot. The Turkish Government demanded the I suppose the intrigues of Germany over Morocco, a bodies back before any explanations would be listened question in which she had no interest whatsoever, and to, and this demand was refused. The Turks explain Delcassé’s resignation from the office of Foreign this by saying that in all probability the bodies of the Minister in the summer of 1905,are events which have unfortunate men were cruelly mutilated; and Notes to not yet been forgotten, even by the English student of the Powers and the Press to this effect have already foreign affairs. Pursued by the bitter malevolence of been despatched. the German authorities, Delcassé disappeared from It has been known for some time that the military office; and he amused himself afterwards by wrecking elements in Turkey have gradually been getting the the Clemenceau Cabinet and studying modern navies. upper hand, and now that the Cretan question has been He is one of the four men in France who are fully shelved for a few months the Chauvinists may seize acquainted with foreign affairs, and he knows a great upon this incident as an excuse for making trouble. deal more about them than the other three. M. Monis, I do not necessarily mean that a war with Greece is the new Premier at the time of writing-he will not likely to arise out of it; but it may serve as a pretext occupy his position very long-found it difficult to form for bullying Greece, embarrassing the Powers, and his Cabinet because of Delcassé’s personality. People strengthening the position of the military party in were afraid of him. Turkey-a party, indeed, which is already fairly strong. Need I say that the Austrian Press writhed a little While on the subject of Turkey, I may say that I am when it became known that Delcassé had been included not particularly impressed by the speech just made by in the new combination? The German point of view the Finance Minister, Djavid Bey, as a preliminary to was expressed unmistakably in the “ Kölnische Zei- introducing his Budget. He relies largely upon tung ” of March 2 in a telegram from its Berlin corres- increased Customs duties for making up his deficit, pondent, who is, I need scarcely say, the mouthpiece of which is, apparently, between £T6,000,000 and the Foreign Office. The latter part of the message £T7,000,000 The Customs duties are at present ran : “If, as many fear, M. Delcassé’s activity were to II per cent., and Djavid Bey held out hopes that, be detrimental to a peaceful policy, we should greatly although the consent of the Powers was necessary regret it; but it would be still less pleasant for the before they could be raised to the proposed 15 per cent.: peace-loving parties in France than for ourselves. We such consent would likely be forthcoming, as France can, in any case, calmly wait and see how things had already practically given hers. develop. ” It must be said at once, however, that this statement This is the sort of hint usually given by a strong is hardly accurate where England is concerned. Recent Power to a Power that is not strong. A Power is not statements made by prominent Ministers and ex- strong when its internal dissensions prevent it from pay- Ministers here show that the condition of things in Mace- ing attention to its foreign policy. It is the sort of donia has not escaped the attention of the authorities, hint that would have been given in the early part of and, although the Turks are doing their best to mend the nineteenth century by a British statesman, when matters, those who support the present Government England occupied the strong position that Germany from humanitarian motives-and their influence is occupies now. 436

despotism, monarchy, oligarchy, or what not, is poli- The Party System. tically immoral. By Hilaire Belloc. One may justly criticise institutions from that aspect, and the. practical side of one’s criticism will be that an I. immoral institution will ultimately hurt a common- I PROPOSE in this and one or two following articles to wealth ; but merely as a test of the health of a Govern- discuss the subject of the little book which Mr. Cecil ment within a State, at a particular moment, the Chesterton and myself produced some weeks ago. The choicest test is this : whether through the existing form book bore the same title as this article; it dealt with of government the national will acts easily and is easily the condition into which Parliament has fallen, and responded to. described the causes of that condition. It was the only business of our little book to show The book has been widely reviewed, nowhere better that in modern England the whole machinery for nor with more judgment than in the columns of THE establishing such a contact between the nation and NEWAGE, and if I treat of it now in these columns it is government has got out of gear, because this considerable batch of public notices has The national will is provided with a very definite moved me to consider the criticisms and questions to channel of action, a channel far more definite than the which the book has given rise in the Press. old aristocratic conventions afforded, far more definite I had at one moment intended to write to three or than is the action of great crowds when they rise in four of the principal newspapers which had dealt at revolutionary moments. “ Here,” say the apologists of length with the little volume, but the list grew so Parliament, “you have no arbitrary rule by a man who rapidly that it seemed better to say in one place what- is merely the son of his father ; you have no ignorant ever I had to say. Moreover, the privilege of writing brute pressure of a mob which can be but a chance to a paper in reply to criticism upon a book of which minority ; here you have no violence-and violence is one is author or part author, is one that should be most the partner of unreason. By a particular system, im- charily exercised; it ought, perhaps, hardly ever to be perfect in detail it is true, but capable of perfection, claimed, save where accuracy upon a detail of fact is the nation can send its freely-elected representatives to challenged, or where some error with regard to one’s a Council Chamber where its soul, as it were, shall be own life or method has crept into the reviewer’s work. reflected, its will in major’ matters effectively carried First of all let me state clearly the connotations of out, and the will of its majority realised in administra- any title, for there is no point in connection with the tion and in law.” book that has led to more confusion or to more mis- In other words, the theory of the House of Com- understanding. mons is at once democratic and representative, and the The little book was not written, and these articles end which it is to serve is the management of govern- are not written, upon the question of party in general. ment. We have not in this particular connection wasted any The House of Commons can hardly itself act as an ink upon the tendency of men in discussion to form executive, itis too general, but it matters little what opposing groups, nor to debate whether this tendency form the executive may take (according to this theory) were rational or irrational, to be applauded or to be so long as that representative body, the House of condemned. All that has been decried as faction and Commons, thoroughly controls the executive and has all that has been praised as the practical organisation the executive for its servant; so long, in other words, as of the Parliamentary body, was remote from our book, (to use the consecrated phrase) the “government of the and had no more to do with it than a railway guide has day is responsible to the House of Commons.” to do with the construction of railways. That the system could work but roughly, anyone with The subject of that little book and of these articles a knowledge of men could at once predict; nor would Is the particular disease from which the English repre- any sensible fellow expect other than general and large sentative system is at present patently suffering, and results in what I have called the great particulars of the title (“The Party System ”) suits the subject only national life to follow from such an arrangement. Still, because it is the popular phrase for the external aspect those results are expected to follow, or at least, if they of the diseased member. A more accurate title, but do not follow then is the machinery not useless but one hardly so terse, would have been :- worse than useless, less national than a national despo- tism or a national aristocracy. Some Remarks It was the object of our book to show that the House UPON of Commons in this, its last phase of decay, had ceased THE TRUE CONDITION OF THE HOUSE to fulfil the end demanded of it. OF COMMONS, It is no longer a question of degree; the degree of with a description of THE nonfulfilment after which the end is no longer served HYPOCRISIES, FALSEHOODS, AND FOLLIES at all, has long been passed, and the House of Commons upon which its action now reposes. is to-day, so far as Great Britain is concerned, a place To which are added numerous EXAMPLES of the same, QUALIFICATIONS, into which a highly organised machine, divided for the and HISTORIC CONSIDERATIONS purposes of its action into two nominally opposing In some mitigation of the Evil, and certain tentative SUGGESTIONS in the matter of its REMEDY. halves, gathers individuals who are responsible not to The whole designed to point out to those not knowingand their constituents, but to the machine. Further, it is a to recall to those too familiar, the Perils a Commonwealth place in which executive power is not responsible to the must run in which such things are endured. general body but, on the contrary, the general body to I must begin with a certain postulate which I think executive power. most thinking men will grant. A nation, to prosper, If I may repeat a phrase I have already used in these must be in control of its own destinies. Therefore columns, the whole point of a parliament is to mani- public opinion, the general desire, the, whole national pulate the executive. If that prove impossible, then to habit of thought, in great particulars as well as in its control the executive; and if that prove impossible, then vague and general lines, must be in touch with what- at least to check the executive. Parliament to-day has ever legislates for the nation, whatever administrates lost all power over the least of these functions. To the its law and whatever negotiates its foreign business. first and second it no longer, even in theory, aspires. Such a connection between the national soul and that The thing is well known; but the little book or small but important part of national activity which we pamphlet which Mr. Chesterton and I issued was call government, may of course be attained in all sorts written with the object of crossing the t’s and dotting of ways. It has been attained (how successfully it is the i’s. It was written to show just how the disease for the historian to say) in popular despotisms, under acts, what particular symptoms it betrays, what morbid truly national aristocracies, in small tribal and city secretions accompany it. We had a great deaI to say democracies, in any one of the many forms and sub- upon particular cases which showed the extent of the forms which human association takes. It is no disease, and still more to say upon certain definite criticism from the point of view of this test of health sections into which the manifestations of the disease in the body politic to say that its form of government, fell: the purchase of policies; the purchase of legis- 437

lative power; the collusion between supposed opponents; judges that they cannot be bribed. Bribery by cash, their close relationship in private life; their methods of however, is not the only form of bribery. A man would co-option; the sale of honours and of office; and so never receive an appointment as a Judge unless he had forth. proved himself; not necessarily as a good Judge but But these things were not said in order to point out as well-fitted to administer the class “ justice ” their moral obliquity : they were said in order to point which is prevalent in England. This form of out the disease of which they were the symptoms. corruption is more subtle than the American or How far public corruption is a cause, and how far an Turkish cash consideration for judgments. Un- effect, of the decay of Parliament it was not ours to happily, it is very prevalent in the English Courts. consider : it was ours to plot the thing out and present After a long experience, the present writer can un- it to the public in a time when the English press in hesitatingly affirm that it is the rare exception for a general was so bound to the humbug that, save in a person holding what may be described as liberal or book, no wide public could be told the truth. advanced opinions to secure justice from English Let me first summarise the criticisms which have Judges. This observation also applies generally to all appeared in the press upon our little volume. kinds of newspapers. Criticism of the Judges is re- They have in the great majority been neither unjust sented by their lordships. The only articulate criticism nor unkind: some few have made accusations with is through the newspapers, and the newspapers have to which I will deal in a moment as false, but the greater pay for it. Sir Charles Darling, the other day, recom- part of the opinions expressed at such length by the mended criminal proceedings in libel actions. The reviewers (who appeal to hundreds where the book will newspapers would welcome such a limitation of libel hardly be read by one) demand rather a careful reply remedies; because that would relieve them of the heavy from the authors than any indignant rejoinder. toll which is levied upon them in the shape of damages. Some points common to nearly all the reviewers arise The two actions by Mr. Simmons against the “ Daily from a misunderstanding; others from the popular but Chronicle ” and “ Liberal Opinion ” are cases in point. erroneous idea of what the House of Commons is to- Mr. Simmons has now been awarded £12,500 in ver- day; others from the use of a logical method which is dicts and judgments ; only because it was stated that he put forward in good faith, but which can be shown to had voted against feeding the school children, and for lead to fallacies. Next week I will deal first with the criticisms which the breaking up of the Works Department of the Lon- arise from a misunderstanding either of the book or don County Council. It is an astonishing extension of of the House of Commons, and come later to the few the law of libel; and the measure of compensation is accusations of falsehood which merit a sterner method amazing. of reply. The Judges have the governing classes behind them. Supposing the technical points taken by Mr. Mylius had been sound, could Lord Alverstone have been relied upon to decide them without regard to the fact that the Judges and the Administration King personally was the prosecutor ? Take several cases on the other side in which the of Justice. plaintiffs have been persons of advanced or heterodox opinions. There was the action by “ Jack ’’ Williams v. THEnumber of political cases which have been before the “ Daily Express,” tried by the Lord Chief Justice, the Law Courts in recent times has been unusually which ended in a verdict for the newspaper. In the large. The decisions in many of those cases have opinion of many people the decision was a serious mis- shaken English confidence a good deal in the im- carriage of justice. The case of Mr. John M. Robert- partiality of the administration of justice in the English son against the “ Leeds Mercury,” tried by Mr. Justice Courts. It is exceedingly perilous to criticise the Grantham, was perhaps one of the most iniquitous mis- Judges or the administration of justice, owing to the trials even in the judicial history of that learned judge. punitive powers possessed by the Judges; but the facts Mr. Edmondson’s recent action against Mr. Amery, must sometimes be placed before the public. It has tried by Mr. Justice Phillimore, one of the most con- often been said that the surest sign of corruption and ceited and incompetent Judges on the Bench, was decay in a community is the omnipotence of the legal another instance of a miscarriage of justice. All these class. In England, that class is all-powerful. The cases were judged, not on the facts, but on irrelevant present Cabinet is filled with lawyers of every kind and prejudice, which was introduced to confuse the issue. description. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor of Mr. John M. Robertson lost his action because he was the Exchequer are lawyers. The House of Commons is a “ Pro-Boer.” As a general principle, the present crowded with legal placemen. The House of Lords has writer would always take the responsibility of advising a fair sprinkling of Law Lords and retired judges. persons of unconventional views not to avail themselves The Judges themselves are a very powerful body of when they are libelled of the “ protection ” of the Law men. It is impossible to remove a Judge, however Courts, because it will not be extended to them. scandalous and corrupt his proceedings may be, without These remarks also apply to Trade Unions. The long obtaining the sanction of both Houses of Parliament to series of actions against Trade Unions, which began carry an address to the King. The Judges have this with the Taff Vale decision, are a melancholy record of further protection. Many of the ten thousand legal class administration of justice. The obiter dicta of appointments are in their gift, or under their recom- Lord Justice Farwell, for instance, in some of those mendation. Thus there is a tremendous indirect in- cases, would afford interesting reading to those who fluence within their control. It is, therefore, against the stilI believe that justice is impartially administered in interest of those engaged professionally in the Courts to England. The paradox of the situation is that the embark upon public criticism of the Judges. The most iniquitous combination against the public interest moment any individual does so-(remember, no one is and the social well-being is the legal trade union. even likely to criticise except in most aggravated cases) No Court is excluded from the ambit of this review. -the machinery of the law begins to move against him. The Privy Council has followed the reactionary prin- The Lord Chief Justice, or the Lord Chancellor, may ciples of the lower Courts. In the Marais case, and the issue some order which will practically prevent any case of the ten Zulus, the Privy Council reversed com- such critic carrying on his profession in the Courts. pletely the settled law of the land. Mr. Frederic Harri- Such action was recently taken, within those matters son, in a scathing examination of the Marais case (“The under the jurisdiction of the Lord Chief Justice, against State of Siege ”), struck thus at Lord Halsbury : “ The a critic of the administration of justice. Lord Alver- obiter. dicta of the Lord Chancellor at the hearing stone has a high opinion of his sense of equity; but were a surprise to the Bar, recalling a Chancellor in whether the public would hold the same view of his comic opera, not the ‘ keeper of the King’s con- probity, were the facts to come out in the case referred science.’ ” Mr. Frederic Harrison is an eminent Iaw- to, is open to question. yer, and one of the few lawyers courageous enough to It has often been urged in approbation of the Engiish denounce a corrupt judgment. The subservience of the 438

Courts to a reactionary Executive has had few graver sentence! The practical result is that the Act has been examples than the Marais and the Zulu cases. In an rendered a nullity, so far as the protection of prisoners Australian appeal, the Australian Volunteers were from the cruelties of ill-tempered and liverish Judges is tricked out of an agreed payment by the doctrine of concerned. Judge A may impose, in a fit of temper, a sentence of fifteen years‘ penal servitude. The prisoner “ the unity of the Crown,” which Lord Halsbury, “ a faithful servant, again enunciated. appeals against the sentence. Judge B, in the Appeal ’ ’ Court, may think three years’ penal servitude an equit- The Home Office Paper upon the working of the able sentence. Judge C may be inclined to consider Prevention of Crime Act indirectly threw a lurid light five years’ penal servitude the proper sentence; and upon the past decisions of the Judges in the Davies and Judge D may believe seven years’ penal servitude the other cases. David Davies started his criminal career right sentence. Yet the sentence of fifteen years would by larceny, for which he was sentenced to one month. stand. As Mr. Justice Pickford said : “ This Court is It must be remembered that thousands of people in this reluctant to interfere with sentences imposed by other country, such is the state of disorganisation in industry Judges. ” Mr. Justice Channell adopted the same view. and in the social polity, are, through no fault of their Sentences are only altered when they are wrong in own, in a condition of aggravated economic insecurity. principle, not when they are too lengthy. It was this That is a hard fact which cannot be denied by the theory of non-interference which induced the Court to wildest optimist of the millionaire class, or the most affirm a sentence of eight years on an old man of 63 ignorant member of the Stock Exchange. Davies’ for stealing two shirts. One may search in vain second offence was stealing a gun, for which he received through the Act of Parliament for any hint of legislative the substantial sentence of eight months’ hard labour. authority for placing such an unreasonable limitation Then follows this damning indictment of the humanity upon the scope of the Act. How do the Judges recon- of the Judges. Davies’ next offence was a burglary of a cile this conduct with their judicial oaths and their con- trifling character. He received seven years’ penal ser- sciences? Another anomaly is, that when a prisoner vitude. He came out, and, being convicted again, he appeals to the Court against an unwarrantable sentence, was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. After the Judge who inflicted the sentence is often a member serving that term he was again convicted for stealing of the Court ! Do their lordships realise that the saying a watch and chain and received fifteen years’ penal “from Philip drunk to Philip sober” is applicable to servitude. This sentence was imposed by Mr. Justice them? The Legislature committed a great error in not Manisty, whom Mr. Churchill euphemistically described setting up a special Criminal Appeal Tribunal. There as “a disciplinarian of the old school,” but who was, in are two special Appeal Courts to deal with civil causes ; reality, “ a brutal ruffian of the old school.’’ Davies and there should have been a third division to adjudicate finished up his career with the sentence which attracted upon criminal appeals. As things stand, it is hopeless the Home Secretary’s attention, of three years’ penal to expect a proper hearing for criminal appeals. servitude and ten years’ preventive detention for steal- It is always dangerous to give special powers to in- ing 2s. ! No wonder the criminal law is a fine insurance dividual men over their fellow-creatures. “ Judge not ” to the propertied classes. Davies had been sentenced to was a saying founded on the truth that no man is fit a total of 51 years’ penal servitude and preventive de- to judge another. In the practical affairs of life, how- tention, and, when released, had actually served 38 ever, Judges must be granted very great powers. Now years! It is upon such cases as these that one may that the judges have plainly degenerated under the in- fairly assume that many Judges administer the criminal fluence of irresponsibility, the time has come to limit law so that the supply of criminals will not, and cannot, their influence. The judges at present are appointed for diminish. fourteen years. This period should be divided into two That is the policy of the Judges. The country is periods of seven years. No Judge should be permitted cursed by a system of criminal law under which more to serve the second term of seven years if, in the and more criminals are created. The more criminals opinion of 120 members of the House of Commons, he the more officials, the more Judges, the more salaries. had shown himself unfit for his judicial office. An That, in a sentence, is one consequence of the irrespon- admiral, a general, the commander of a battleship, and sibility of the Judges. Crime has become a vested any other officer in the Services or an officer in the interest. merchant shipping profession, can be court-martialled One may glance at the case of William Brown. “My for the slightest error of judgment. This view of puis- first case was in 1868, and I have never been more sant responsibility should be extended to the holders of than a week or two out of prison since. I have been judicial office. Again, where a Judge can be shown to be guilty of gross incompetence or prejudice at a trial, sent five times to penal servitude, and have served over so that a new trial has to be ordered, he should be 34 years.” Whenever he came out of prison and got liable to pay a portion of the costs thrown away by the a job, as soon as it was found he had been in prison he abortive trial. The tribunal to decide upon that amount was “chucked out like a dog.” Having no money, no might consist of a Committee of both Houses of Parlia- friends, and no work, Brown wandered about, until ment presided over by thë Lord Chancellor. driven to committing another crime, and so returning These are the points upon which the House of Com- to prison. “If you knew what I have gone through mons might direct an investigation into the administra- in penal servitude, you would give me a chance. I have tion of justice and the possibility of reform in the been five times on the triangle, and flogged like a dog.’’ appointment of the Judges. Such a Committee of In- It is true, as Mr. St. Loe Strachey would unctuously quiry might also consider the advisability of re-casting tell us, that no man need commit crime, and if he does, the patronage which is vested in the Judges. An in- so much the worse for him. One could accept that view vestigation into the number of relatives and friends of if there were anything like economic security for the Judges holding lucrative posts would produce some sur- most hard working man. But there is not; and crime, prising revelations. One of the most startling appoint- in many circumstances, is a reluctantly-taken step ments was that of Mr. Justice Sutton, who had been in caused by the imminence of want and starvation. Lord Alverstone’s chambers and who retired very shortly After strong pressure by lay reformers, the Criminal after he had been made a Judge. Also, the planting of Appeal Act was passed in 1907. One hoped that the Mr. Justice Grantham’s son, as Clerk of Assize, upon Act would be the means of preventing a repetition of the Oxford Circuit, was a singular incident. The aboli- Manisty savageries. The Judges take an oath to ad- tion of the Judges’ Marshal, one of the performing minister the law of the Realm as enacted by Parliament. troupe which accompanies a Judge on circuit, is a press- Immediately the Act was in operation the Judges of the ing reform. The Judge’s Marshal is an individual who is King’s Bench laid dtown, by their judgments, certain supposed to amuse the judge in the evening during the rules to guide themselves in administering the Act. One period his lordship is on circuit. Considering that a of those principles of procedure was, even although the Judge receives £5,000 a year salary and an extra allow- Judges of the Criminal Appeal Court would not them- ance of £7 10s. a day while on circuit, it is an outrage selves have imposed the particular sentence under that the taxpayers should be saddled with the cost of appeal, this was not a sufficient reason for reducing the his amusing marshal. C. STANHOPE. 439

make her desirable, make her also unbeautiful. The Nietzsche and Woman. ancient Greek saw this, and as his sense of form By V. W. Eyre. approached perfection, ceased to model her. From the best Greek period we have only male forms. But we “A MAN who has depth of spirit . . . . can only think cannot banish her. Where their drama gives us the of woman as the Orientals do.” So said Nietzsche feats of gods and the agency of heroes. ours gives us some twenty years ago, and raised his voice in warning merely the agony of lovers; where their sculptor gives against the emancipatlon of woman. But can we, us the grace of a young Greek god, ours gives us “Le heartily as we reject that warning and applaud every Baiser ” or “The Eternal Spring.” Their literature advance she makes toward social, economic or legal is concerned with sex incidentally; ours, as a matter of freedom, who are grateful for every sign of her awaken- course. Just as the Head of Hupnos is typical of their ing self-respect, who look forward hopefully to all that art, so the Velasquez Venus is typical of ours. We the future holds in store for her, can we avoid the con- even see beauty in it. clusion that that inferior status for which he longed, No doubt the illusion of sex has been necessary to qualified, no doubt, by a developed humanitarianism, our development, just as youth has been; but it will must ultimately await her ? equally pass away. We shall outgrow it. The gradual We need not endorse his judgment, almost brutal in perfection of their wonderful sense of form broke the its frankness, of the woman of his day; we may deny power of sex for the Greeks, and in course of time it emphatically that that judgment need necessarily re- must do so for us, when we reach a like stage of main apt; we may point to the vast changes which development. While every year weakens the force of have occurred since his time; but in this matter we our primitive instincts and adds to our powers of have many other things to consider: for we are con- restraint, we look to the growth of a general artistic cerned, not with her advance, but with her relative consciousness to bring about our ideal. Such a growth advance, and not with that only. attacks the evil at its very root, and long as the time To us the education of women has proved a bitter which must elapse before its realisation may be, we disappointment from the cultural point of view. The know, we feel, that it must come to pass. And the girl who goes up to Newnham or Somerville with intel- evolution of woman herself cannot prevent it. Even lect, leisure, everything in her favour, entering a world in that day when the doll-like face we worship shall where even the stones speak of books and the very air have given place to the comeliness which comes of breathes culture, is soon in a perfect maze of artistic good health and exercise; when every woman shall and literary criticism. Seeking sure guidance and dress with taste and walk like the harlot; when the finding none, where every set has its idol and a thou- last relics of barbarism shall have disappeared from her sand conflicting opinions are current, she is hopelessly ears and that ingenuous look died out of her bewildered and at a loss. Forgetting the very meaning eyes; even then we are confronted with the eugenist, of culture, conceiving it a duty, something to be who demands for her everything we hate most; and so acquired as a science is acquired, she sets to work to she must remain lovely and unbeautiful. For us, we learn about it. The result is not culture, not even an are free, free to begin an existence where sex does not honest barbarism, but a jumble of conflicting and tyrannise over life, and a literature wherein beauty shall equally authoritative opinions, between which she has take the place of romantic love. no power to choose. To a man, culture is a growth, If this forecast be correct, and we feel that it is so, spontaneous, gathering strength with the years; to her the future position of women depends on their capacity a mere acceptance of authority, a point of view for intellectual and artistic development. And in this assumed, a veneer, beneath which there is none of that we see a danger for her. Since her stock of energy sense of conviction which comes only with the memory is less than a man’s, while the calls on it are larger and of beautiful things seen and strange impulses aroused. more insistent, she tends always to fall behind in the The truth is, she cannot stand alone; she must always race for development. She learns more slowly-indeed, cling to some authority. Finally she goes forth into for centuries she scarcely seems to learn at all. For the world, often with great enthusiasms, anxious to unknown years she has striven to please men and devote to the general welfare her industry, patience and attract them by her dress and her adornments. Yet enormous capacity for hard work-a capacity which the she has not yet settled even the elements of the first, first philanthropic society she joins duly proceeds to and the second remains paltry and vulgar. There is a exploit. She becomes a mere hack. limit to the energy which she can devote, either indi- Disappointing as the past has been, sceptical as vidually or in the race, to the pursuit of her develop- women themselves are as to the future, no doubt real ment, just as there is for a man; and since that limit culture is for them, as for us, merely a matter of time. is more easily reached, she must eventually stop dead But already there is appearing something among us, in her progress, and see the man leave her far behind. almost imperceptible though its influence may be, which If this is so, a horrible fate awaits her. Scorned as a threatens to affect her position far more radically than companion, neglected as a woman, she begins to any culture, and more widely than any social or econo- decline, she falls into a separate caste with all the power mic change. she has used so ill taken from her. The women of fifty And that is a growing conviction that woman is years ago were a separate and lower caste; disguise it inherently and necessarily unbeautiful. Brought up how we will, they had no part nor lot in our affairs, as we are amid a convention which regards woman they existed merely “for the recreation of the warrior.” as the highest of God’s creatures, nourished on a litera- But while they had the power of attracting men, of ture which compares her to the moon and the stars for governing them by means of romantic illusions and beauty, it is hard for us to see her as she is. We, a chivalrous ideals, thè woman of the future will have generation obsessed by sex, more sexual than any sav- no such power, and her fate will depend on the gene- ages, living in an atmosphere reeking of sex, where rosity of that age. And whatever that generosity, and every song is a love song, every drama a love drama, whether her sex or her intellect and companionableness and every novel a love novel, how shall we know the fail her first, we see her slowly assuming the secondary truth, how shall we see her through clear eyes? To role ; we begin to think of her as the Orientals do. few men is it given to escape, even temporarily, from Considering what little progress Art has made in the illusions of sex, to fewer still to analyse those Europe, and especially how far behind the Greeks we charms which have hitherto blinded us; but he who are in sense of form, we may expect the gulf between does so will realise, quite suddenly it may be, how her intellect and man’s to become well marked long great a force avails to cloud his imagination and eclipse before the artistic sense is at all fully developed in us. his judgment. For no female form is beautiful. What Finally, however, she loses her hold on us, and we see sculptor will hesitate between the Venus of Milo and her sink into that status which Nietzsche so ardently an Apollo? What face is more beautiful than the desired for her, dragged down by causes which he did Head of Hermes? Beauty requires strength and firm- not foresee into a degradation from which we revolt, ness of outline; woman gives us only softness and the dragged back by the very forces which made all her sweep of great curves. In fact, the very things which I progress-civilisation and the progress of man. 440

unearthy property of manifesting itself in a torrent of The Don in Arcadia. sounds-sounds concerning daffodils, daisies that little children pull, potatoes that kitchenmaids peel, and such- V.--The Simple, Life. like puerilities. Chestnuton calls these things poetry, BUT for my invincible abhorrence of verbal extrava- and he hints at publishing a collection of them under gance, the present paper might be headed an Eclogue : the title of ‘‘ Herbal Hymns.” If he does, he will, so peaceful and pastoral a life have I been leading without a doubt, pay for it by suffering most severe during the last few weeks among these pleasant ridicule at the hands of men of humour; which, me- Arcadian valleys. Perhaps it is only the novel experi- thinks, will be but a moiety of the punishment he ence of hills, heaths, and healthy mental vacuity, after deserves. For, like other persons similarly afflicted, the tedious terms of academic servitude, to which I Chestnuton is not content to possess his cult in peace. have been sentenced for so many years, that invests this He wants to convert me. He insists on my lying down life with so potent a charm in my eyes. But, be the on the ground, too, that I also may absorb the Earth philosophical explanation of ’the feeling what it Force. Now that posture, however pleasing it may be may, somehow--I do not exactly know how-I feel to a man of his physique, is utterly repugnant to one of strangely comfortable in my bucolic environment. I mine. I may be unpoetical; but that does not distress feel as if I could spend a thousand long, unprofitable me at all. What does distress me sorely is being un- days here, surprising Nature in her most elemental comfortable. I wonder whether Chestnuton would be moods and composing melodious and mendacious so fond of the earth and of poetry were he as lean as psalms on the non-existent innocence of Arcadia. I am? it is a simple life-not insipid or stupid, as a hyper- There are many other foolish things Chestnuton does critical observer might think, but only frugal and con- with a solemnity that would be highly amusing, if I tented. The climate sweetens the emotions, and rudi- was not his guest and, in a manner, at his mercy. For mentary cookery satisfies our grosser appetites ; which, instance, he appears to imagine that, because we live in in itself, is a tolerably long step towards happiness. the country, we are country-folk. It is one more of his But of cookery more anon. Here I will subdue my pen picturesque paralogisms. He might as reasonably to humbler themes. argue that, because Mr. Alfred Austin writes verses, I have been fortunate in the time of my visit. This he’s a poet, or that, because I like to drink something seems to be a season of prosperous repose in Arcadia. less unexhilarating than water, I am a dipsomaniac. The reckless prodigality of midsummer is gone by ; the Country-folk forsooth ! Personally, I can tell, without meagre, calculating parsimony of cold-blooded winter difficulty, a cow from a horse; and he was asking me has not yet come. Nature appears to live well within to-day if it is true that potatoes do not grow on trees her means : a lady of assured position, unostentatiously as apples do! proud of her past, calmly confident in the future. It is, The mention of cows tempts me to record another if I may say so, a middle-aged sort of season, alike free of Chest nut on ’s characteristic eccentricities . Having from the excesses of youth and from the deficiencies of persuaded himself that milk warm from the udder is the old age-a season of chastened and sober mood in per- only kind of milk proper to people leading a pastoral fect tune with my own temperament. existence, he has purchased a big and clumsy quadru- There are moments when I suspect that an uncanny ped to which he has given the name of “Chloë.” It is change has taken place in my modes of thinking and hardly necessary for me to state that I have no preju- acting. My preference for pedestrian exercise has de- dice against cows in the abstract. Why should I? In generated into something not far removed from passion. effect, I am ready to admit that a cow may be a very I no longer slouch about as a mere peripatetic philoso- proper animal in a meadow. But-it is here that the pher. I scour the country like an escaped lunatic- grievance lies-Chestnuton persists in extending to his almost like a poet. Day after day I wander between uncouth quadruped the freedom of the house; which, I flowering hedges and across green moist meadows. I submit, involves much that is both awkward and un- lose my way in the woods. I climb over hills, filling seemly. my learned lungs with deep draughts of wild air. I ‘‘ I love to see Chloë filling the room with her vitality,” err at large-an emancipated pedagogue. As I pass he said this morning, as the monster lurched against by the paddocks, I pause to pat the horses which hold our breakfast table, spilling the coffee over my grey their heads over the rails: even the horses of Arcadia flannel trousers. look to me more human than certain professors of Politeness compelled me to disguise my emotions. the humanities I have known in Boeotia. In the afternoon I found Chloë lying upon my Aris- All this must, I suppose, be due to the influence of totle. Chesnuton would not allow me to disturb the environment; for is not everything nowadays, that is brute. not due to heredity, due to the influence of environ- “Wait for her to get up naturally,” he said, “so that ment? Environment and that merciful adaptability to we may study her movements and, perchance, obtain it by which man achieves self-preservation. Polar ex- an inkling into her soul.” plorers, we read, become accustomed to a temperature I again said nothing, but sat down, fervently pray- of 60 degrees below zero; Anglo-Indians grow fat ing in my heart that Chloë would go. under a thermometer which registers 120 degrees in the All this is very upsetting to a man of my character shade; and habitual diners-out learn to tolerate with a and habits. Chestnuton’s conduct can only be ac- smile a conversational atmosphere that would have counted for on the hypothesis that he is mad. But I driven them to self-destruction at home. Fortunately do my best not to betray my suspicions; for, after all, I possess a considerable share of this valuable faculty. he is my host. On the contrary, I behave just as if I Were Fate to throw me suddenly among the Cannibals esteemed him sane. I drink the beer he provides for -assuming that any have escaped conversion-I be- me, trying to forget the existence of port. I never lieve that I should in time develop a genuine taste for allude to cigars, but smoke a dirty clay pipe, as he human flesh, though I might never, perhaps, become does, without evincing any sign of disgust. a really accomplished anthropophagos. Cannibalism, Sometimes I carry my adaptability to the length of when all is said, is like poetry, money-making, or mis- active complicity. Thus, when I see my host potter sionary zeal-you must be born to it. However, I am about the garden armed with a bill-hook, doing incalcu- not called upon to prove my cannibalistic aptitude in lable mischief and feeling proportionately useful, I not Arcadia, and of this I am glad. only refrain from comment, but even stoop to pick up The only fly in the ointment of my happiness is my a dry leaf from the lawn now and then. host. His intimacy with Nature daily assumes more Despite our combined endeavours, the garden seems indecent dimensions. He loves to lie down on the to thrive. grass, “ in order,” he avers, “ to absorb the Earth It contains one plant. It is a plant of uncertain Force ”-a habit that would be comparatively inoffen- affinities, yet, according to my host, distinctly a plant sive were it inaudible. As it is, the force which Ches- with a past. nuton absorbs from the Earth seems to possess the “There is character in that creeper,” he said to me, 441

when he introduced me to it on the day after my life. Every living thing changes its shape continually. arrival. True life means luxuriance.” “ I hope it is a nice character? ” “What you call luxuriance in the vegetable kingdom, He did not seem to hear my question, but went on to is incoherence, inconsequence, barbarism, when trans- deliver an impassioned panegyric on his plant: lated into terms of humanity. It is the vocation of culture to school our impulses by --” “In the simplicity and the pride of its youth this “By closing the avenues of the soul to the forces creeper,” he said, “took it into its romantic head to of Nature ! And what is the result? A narrow and climb up that door and, apparently mistaking the shady stunted growth a thousand times worse than death. recess over the porch for heaven, it rested there con- No, my dear fellow. The only road to ultimate per- tented for a while. But the chilliness and the dreari- fection lies through unrestricted expansion. I am ness of its surroundings undeceived it at length, and rustic enough to know that.” then, with one great, impetuous, impulsive spring, Ruthlessly rustic is my host, and his enthusiasm which now surprises it a little, it cleared the grey wall, does not spare even the harmless tenants of the poultry- reached the water-spout above and, by its helping arm, yard ; despotic also beyond credence, and to a degree thus escaped to the roof and the warm sunlight.” which defies description and renders criticism danger- “This sounds like an allegory,’’ said I, eyeing him ous. Every afternoon I find him, with his coat off and doubtfully. his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the elbows, hard at work “No, it is only a chapter of autobiography,” he re- among the cackling hens and the hissing geese. He “ That creeper symbolises my own plied, unblushingly. bestows upon the unhappy fowls an amount of solici- career. It is only lately that I have learned to know my- tude which, I am morally certain, cannot be altogether self. I had not tasted real life until poetry entered into the solitude of my soul. My former existence to the benefit of its recipients. This is the sort of was a mistake. I despise it. I do not mean,” thing that drives people to rebellion. It is paternal . . . rule at its best. But, of course, so long as the fowls he added after a pause, “that am ashamed of the I refrain from complaining, achievements of my youth. If I contemplate them now I refrain from protesting. with a feeling of contempt, that proceeds only from the I do not understand the pleasure some people seem to derive from making themselves the gratuitous ex- conviction that I have attained a higher level of ponents of other people’s grievances. I have small wisdom. ” sympathy with societies for the prevention of cruelty to “Perhaps,” I ventured, “you are too eager to see strange animals, wives, or children, and I have always a symbol and to read a meaning into everything.” carefully avoided any dealings with the champions of “I am not surprised to hear you say so. You see oppressed nationalities. There is much wisdom in only the rind of things. You cannot read between the letting people alone. lines ! ” For the rest, the conflict of opinion and feeling I “Between the lines there is nothing, my dear friend, have indicated notwithstanding, we are a happy com- but blank paper ! ” munity. It is true that I do not share Chestnuton’s “There is no profit in discussing these matters with ecstasies. I do not experience within me that vague you. You believe in nothing, and do not believe very shadowing forth of infinite depths which he says he profoundly even in that ! ” owes to Nature. Neither do I find in Arcadian While Chestnuton gave vent to these impassioned serenity, as he professes to do, a calmness suggesting commonplaces, I continued my inspection of his garden; unutterable passion. All these sensations are totally and I take leave to state that the other things which alien to me. Nevertheless, I am glad I came to grow more or less reluctantly, in it can only be called Arcadia. The change of environment is beginning to plants by poetic licence. They are, in truth, mere non- justify itself. My brain seems to be stirring with descript vegetable anomalies of no more psychical in- fresh births. For what Darwin has said about the pro- terest than the Greek irregular verbs or a novel by Mrs. duction of new species is equally true as regards the Humphry Ward. They all look unkempt, untutored, production of new ideas : “Although isolation is of and uncivilised-result, I doubt not, of the open-air life great importance in the production of new species, on they are obliged to lead. I timidly suggested to Chest- the whole I am inclined to believe that largeness of nuton a conservatory for their improvement. area is still more important, especially for the produc- “No, no ! ” he exclaimed. “Let a garden be a tion of species which shall prove capable of enduring for garden, and a drawing-room a drawing-room. Rus- a long period, and of spreading widely.” ticity is admirable only so long as it has the courage to remain rustic. What would Adam and Eve have said of a conservatory? ” An Englishman in America. “I am sure I don’t know,” I replied. “But I do Juvenal. know that people who have hothouses enjoy the advan- By tage of growing things all the year round-useful, eat- THENew York papers are beginning to cry out against able things. For example, grapes. I like grapes.” the bad manners of the men on the elevated and the sub- way cars, and I think it about time. I have wondered “That is not gardening,” he said, shaking his head severely. ‘‘Those people only get the fruits of vicarious how decent people have borne so long with the human art. They never experience the natural joys of digging, brutes, old and young, that infest these lines of travel, planting, and wheedling-to-grow-the joys that come from which there is no escape for those who do not only to us humble rustics who toil with our own horny own motors. *** hands, ever battling against the elements.” One of the great “ sights ” of New York is to sit “For my part, I have no objection to vicarious art, provided it is productive. I------” and contemplate the men with their legs stuck out as far as they can reach. These trains, or, I should say, “ You are a prosaic utilitarian. You shall never know the disinterested delight I feel when I sally forth of a the people with the manners of apes, lolling in the morning to see the sun blazing or the frost beating apathy of American civilisation, are there, not for orna- fiercely upon my innocent nurselings. The sight of ment, but to furnish New Yorkers with the cheapest, their peril arouses all the nobler instincts in my nature. most efficient, most frightful mode of calisthenics ever ‘They must be! covered at once with pots or baskets invented to keep the legs of rheumatic people limber, or mats or anything else I can lay hands on, or they and make both old and young look before they leap. will perish,’ I cry, rushing to their rescue. ‘ There, It is a matter of practice. Without this daily jumping you are all safe now, dear babies,’ I say to them, when of hurdles in the New York trains large numbers of the the rescue is over, ‘ I will now repose me on the people would take life too easily. For it is not a ques- grass.’ ” tion of stepping over the legs of the men. You are ‘‘ Without some sort of artificial discipline,” I in- supposed to jump over. You jump in the morning when sisted, “plants are apt to run wild. You cannot have coming down town and you jump again when returning proper symmetry and uniformity, unless --” in the evening; that makes two free lessons in one day “ Symmetry and uniformity are not the marks of true in the art of clearing the human hurdle of legs. 442

You can tell the old-timers by the way they go at it, said of her first experience of a Wagnerian opera, it by their look of resignation mingled with a certain must be seen to be appreciated. amount of physical courage-something like what a bull *** must feel in the arena at the critical moment. Some of A writer in the New York “ American” calls atten- the people who travel every day on these trains have tion to this mania in the following editorial :-“ Per- come to regard this kind of exercise as a special act of haps you have noticed in your enforced journeys on the Providence towards keeping the body as nimble as the subway and other obnoxious lines of travel that the mind, thus making all things work together for good jaws of many men and women are moving almost as in the worst world ever invented to try the patience of fast as the wheels; yet they are not speaking. They Yankee saints or the long-suffering Jobs of Manhattan belong to the great brotherhood of gum-chewers, from Island . *** which there is no escape.” But what of the women in these trains? Do you *** mean to say the women are expected to do the hurdle The national secretary of the Christian Woman’s act? Well, as the man said at the trial, “ That’s Board of Foreign Missions deprecates the selfishness of accordin’.” The other day I saw an elderly woman the American people in vigorous fashion. She points baulk at the leg hurdle. She stopped, considered a out that 16,000,000 dollars a year is the sum spent for moment, then pulled herself together to make the leap, chewing-gum, 100,000,000 for ice-cream sodas, with the skirts of happy chance well arranged for the 178,000,000for candy, and only a paltry 4,000,000 for perilous act. She drew back some paces in order to the conversion of the heathen. Missionary collection take a hop, skip, and jump, when, just in the nick of boxes are not in it with slot machines. time, one of the half-drunken young men, whose right *** leg formed a part of the hurdle, straightened up and While the New Yorker is grappling with the chewing- took down the leg. gum mania, out in the Middle West, at the University *** of Kansas, one hundred young men have petitioned the A conductor on one of the elevated trains has in- faculty for the appointment of a professor in table vented a delightful way of honouring people among his manners. These students do not want to know what acquaintances who have braved the dangers of New to eat, but how to eat. Evidently with them it is not so York travel for any length of time, and have emerged much a question of chawing on the leather-bound beef- from the ordeal still capable of battling with the steaks of Chicago as it is to find out the most graceful hurdles, the flesh, and the New York devils. He pre- way of sawing them asunder. While sawing your sents them with small coloured ribbons. Those who “ vittles,” should your elbows go up like raised wings, escape at the end of a year with seven sprains of the or should they lap well over the fifth rib like the flap- ankle receive a yellow ribbon, those who escape with pers of a well-skewered goose? The whole question three twists of the knee joint get a red ribbon, those bristles with difficulties, seeing that this is an age in who get a bruise in the lumbar region, a kick in the which manners are becoming more and more cosmo- solar plexus, a whack on the ear, and a wrench of the politan, like morals, and one of these days some be- neck, get the blue ribbon. I am told that the recipients wildering faddist will declare the correct mode of eating of these decorations are prouder of the honour than they peas is not with a western carving knife, half as big as would be if they received a “ moral diploma ” from the a swallowing sword, but with Chinese chop-sticks, and editor of the New York “ Outlook.” that the proper way to drink champagne is with a soup- .* * * ladle. *** “ You see that man across there? ” asked a friend The consciousness of ignorance is the beginning of with whom I was travelling on the subway a few days wisdom. These Kansas students are certain to win. ago. “ He is undergoing a course of mental discip- Henry Ward Beecher once said :-“ Clothes and line.” I looked at the person indicated, and I saw a manners don’t make the man, but when he is made they man of about fifty. I was struck by the pallor of his improve his appearance.’’ Now most of the students face, and the ghastly smile that was doubtless intended at Yale and Harvard seem to think that clothes make to illumine his countenance like a ray of sunshine on a the man, and very little thought is ever given to man- livid cloud. The man looked as if he had just come ners; and the smart young snobs of the Eastern col- to life, and the awful smile may have been put on to leges will howl in derision at the hundred braves who let people know that death is not quite as bad as it want to know how to hold a fork, wrestle with soup, seems. “ What do you mean by mental discipline,” I and sample dessert in the very best and most civilised asked. My friend explained : “ You see, New York is fashion. Nevertheless, I bet on the noble hundred of in the throes of the smiling mania.” “ Yes,” I said, the University of Kansas, for if it came to fighting “I have heard about it.” “Well,” he went on, “that with fists or pitchforks, twenty-five Kansas men would man over there makes four trips a day on these trains clean out fifty from Harvard or Yale ; while if it came just to discipline his face to smile perpetually. You see to a question of patience, perseverance, originality, and how it is, he has picked out these trains as about the native strength of character, I should still put my worst purgatory he could find in New York and he has money on Kansas. frozen to the job and the smile has frozen too.” **c *** The other day I heard a man declare that Harvard, After that I began to study the effect of the smiling Yale, Columbia, and Princeton have now reached a mania, and I distinguished three manifestations of the point when they can “ sass back” at Oxford and thing, that is to. say, two kinds of slits and one smile. Cambridge, and ask for no favours. The universities I found a good many with the ghastly slit, but the of the Eastern States, it appears, patronised by the vast majority wore the simper plain, as one would wear sons of millionaires who set the tone in the matter of a plain wedding ring. In one car I was in, fully half sports, have relegated learning and culture to the tail the people were simpering, and they made me think of a end of American institutions. But the rude truth is, flock of turkeys on a gridiron heated to the critical whenever you hear of a politician who has made the point, not knowing whether to dance or fly, and had I U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives howl, it remained longer I might have been seized with a is a politician from the South or West that has done the sudden fit of laughter; I made my exit at the next stop- trick. One Champ Clark from the Middle West is ping place, although I had intended going on much quite capable of “ chawing up ” half a dozen politicians farther. and millionaires of the East, and then picking his teeth *** on the steps of the Capitol with all the aplomb of a There is the rag-time music mania, there is the Bonaparte going to be crowned. The New Yorker smiling mania, and last, but not least, the chewing-gum pretends to regard London as effete, but the successful mania. This last is exceedingly formidable. Imagine man from the West looks on New Yorkers as infants trains full of people, most of them with a “ chaw ” of nursed by an old maid wearing a night cap of liberty, gum! Men and women, boys and girls, chewing the with a feeding-bottle in one hand and the Book of national cud of dairy-fed contentment! As the woman Snobs in the other. 443

(2) Those who give advice to a prince must be A Statesman’s Mind. cautious lest he should have some still more confi- dential adviser, and, again, lest he might desire war in By Niccolò Machiavelli. time of peace, through not being able to live without it. (SpeciaIIy translated for “The New Age” by J. M. Kennedy.) (3) The use of arms should be kept to the last, until all other means of settlement have failed. [NOTE.--The following aphorisms, “ faithfully selected from the works of Niccolò, Machiavelli,” were arranged “by- a (4) A prince who possesses any feeling of humanity celebrated lawyer and man of letters ” to show that Machia- cannot altogether rejoice over a victory that afflicts his velli’s designs were not always so sinister as some of his subjects with grief. shocked adversaries, chiefly Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon, have (5) As rank and power increase, enmity and envy tried to make him appear. Even though these aphorisms likewise increase : a state of things that usually brings are wrenched from their context, however, the true follower about war and destruction. of Machiavellii will have no difficulty in discerning his master‘s ideas by reading, where necessary, between the (6) The only enduring rule is that which is voluntary. lines.-Translator.] (7). The man who, dazzled by ambition, reaches such a height that he can rise no further, is then compelled SECTIONI.--RELIGION. to fall with the greatest injury to himself. (I) The glory of God and the universal happiness of (8) In a well-ordered state, wars, treaties of peace, the State should be the chief motives in any enterprises and alliances are not arranged with the object of afford- which are undertaken. ing satisfaction to a few, but of benefiting the nation (2) Every enterprise proposed among the governing as a whole. classes is rendered easier by the fear of God. (9) A war that is just is necessary. (3) Where there is religion, we presuppose every- (IO) The nation laments a. war that is waged without good cause. thing good; where it is lacking, everything evil. (II) It is not the ruler that first takes up arms who (4) As the observance of divine law is the cause of causes a quarrel; but the prince who first gives cause the greatness of states, so is its neglect the cause of for them to be taken up. their downfall. (12) Let princes remember that any man may begin (5) The failure to observe religion and laws is the a war when he likes; but that he cannot finish it when vice which is all the more distasteful the more it is he likes. found among those who command. (13) Whenever a victory impoverishes the victor, or (6) It is impossible for the man who commands to the newly-acquired possessions of a country tend to weaken it, it is high time to draw a halt, or else those be respected by the man who despises God. who are waging war will not reach the end for which (7) In well-ordered states, the citizens are even more wars are waged. afraid of breaking their oath than of breaking the (14)The country which becomes impoverished laws; for they value the power of God more highly than through waging war cannot gain strength even if it be the power of man. victorious, because it spends on its acquisitions more (8) Ruling classes who wish to remain uncorrupted than it gains through them. must, above all else, maintain uncorrupted all religious (I5) In badly-governed states, victories first of all ceremonies, and always hold them in the highest empty the public treasury and then impoverish the esteem. people, though not at the- same time safeguarding them (9) If religion were upheld in all Christian states as from their enemies: whence it comes about that the its Founder ordered it to be, such states would be victors do not reap the entire fruits of their victory, more united and happy than they now are. and their enemies hardly feel their loss. (16) Rulers should guard themselves against captur- (IO) To be able to hold God in low esteem, and the Church in still lower, is not the task of an honourable ing those cities or provinces which do not avenge them- man but of a knave--of the man whose inclinations selves on their aggressors by quarrels or bloodshed; but are evil rather than of the man whose inclinations are imbue their conquerors instead with their vicious habits, good. to such a degree that these very conquerors will yield to the first assault from any other quarter. (I I) The loss of the spirit of devotion and of religion, itself brings in its train innumerable difficulties and (17) We welcome manliness, even in an enemy, when disasters. cowardice and spite have become displeasing to us. (18) He who sets too great a value on his armour, (12) St. Francis and St. Dominick, by their life of poverty and their endeavour to live after the example of and wishes to see himself honoured in it, loses that Jesus Christ, changed the conception of the Christian which above all else he should prize most highly : his religion prevailing in the minds of men and brought faith. it back to what it was originally. (19) Even in war there is nothing glorious about that species of fraud which makes people break their words (13) The Christian religion, having shown us truth and their pledges. and a true way of life, should be interpreted by our (20) A prince should place his faith before all mere strength (virtù), and not by our idleness. conveniences and dangers. (14)On feast-days it is not seemly for men to lounge idly about their houses and taverns. (To be continued.) 15One quality above all others that distinguishes a man in his own state is the exhibition of liberality and magnificence, especially in the erection of churches, AFTER HEINE. monasteries, and houses for the poor and infirm, and Where shall one, all travel-weary, for pilgrims. Courting rest at last recline? (16) The good citizen, although he continually spends In the South beneath the palm-tree? money in churches, temples, and charities, is grieved Under lindens by the Rhine? to think that, no matter how much he spends to the glory of God, he can never find money enough to wipe Shall it be upon the desert, out the debt due to the Almighty. Covered by a stranger’s hand, (17) We should thank God when, in his infinite Or on billows undulating, goodness and mercy, he deigns to adorn a state or a Far from any Christian land? citizen, when the former merits such a distinction by its greatness and the latter by his rare virtues or Onwards ever :-Heaven hanging wisdom. Shrouds about me, here or there, SECTIONII.--WAR AND PEACE. While for torches, stars at midnight (I) A good and wise prince should love peace and Overhead are burning clear. avoid war. ERNESTRADFORD, 444

desires and reject or avoid or forget what he does not Unedited Opinions. desire. You see now the value and the need of selection in experience and knowledge. The Selection of Experience. Quite, but how is that selection to be made? OF all the delusions now current in advanced circles That, I fear, is where the modern difficulty arises. none to my mind is worse than the pretence that people Mere appetite, you know, cannot select anything. It is simply a ravening vacuum; and that is how desire either to experience everything or to know every- I figure modern mind. Properly speaking it is not an organism thing. Neither, in fact, is either possible or desirable; at all; it is not an individual or indivisible unit, but and whoever supposes that it is labours under a simply an empty belly, perpetually greedy for quantity, wretched delusion. but incapable of selecting by quality. The modern Surely the delusion, if it is a delusion, should not be mind is a mob, not an individual at all. called wretched. Is not the desire to know everything Then is there no remedy for this state of thing? and to feel everything one of the greatest motives in Only such a remedy as philosophers would be needed life ? to apply. I have no patience with lying motives. If it can be But can you not suggest it? To begin with, we should need, I fear, to reverse the proved that nobody does, in fact, desire all experience, current of modern thought; no easy matter. Spencer’s or all knowledge, the assumed motive goes, because it infamous definition of life, for example, would have to off ers no explanation. be swept away. Did he not lead men to suppose that But can it be proved? progress consists in the increasing complication of life ? Well, the impossibility of experiencing everything is In truth it is the very contrary. However his theory obvious; so, too, is the impossibility of knowing every- may apply to the mind, of the soul it may be confidently thing. But, probably, you are doubtful about the un- said that its progress is towards simplicity. desirability ? By soul I understand you to mean individuality. I confess I am. Individuality or character or whatever you please. The point is that the most valuable part of a man, that Then, tell me, would you, for example, like to know which makes him man and not an animal, proceeds in what it feels to be a hangman, or a murderer, or a what is miscalled its evolution by the exactly contrary deformity, or a- method to that of Spencer. It does not, in fact, Enough, enough ! “ evolve ” at all; it merely sheds successive veils of Right, then we can safely assert that not all experi- multeity, complexity and lies. Unfortunately, the ence is desired by anybody. As for knowledge, are you modern tendency is to deny the existence of this soul curious to know how many grains of sand there are or and to regard it as, at best, only a compound of the the number of leaves in Vallambrosa? You are not. appetites, desires, and experiences of the mind. And Very well, then, the point is proved that nobody in the since the latter is, in solemn fact, no more than an ape, world really desires to know or to experience everything. the characteridentified with it tends to become more Now I’ll go a little further and add that quite an equal and more apish and aimless and indiscriminately motive with the desire to experience is the desire not to voracious. To re-define individuality is, perhaps, the experience. Not to wish to experience or to know is as first necessity in spiritual reform. much a motive in life as the wish to experience and to But what effect would that have on the question of know. Yet you would think it odd, would you not, if experience ? I said that the main motive in life is to avoid ex- Why, this; individuality is itself a selecting agent. perience and knowledge? Why should it not strike you Simple characters always know what they want and as equally absurd when the so-called advanced people what they do not want. It is your complex minds with- pretend that the other half is the whole? out a central authority that run about in search of this I do not know why, but until this moment they did and that experience, driven by a simian activity and not appear to me to be obviously absurd. curiosity. When I hear of people who gad hither and No and the reason is that not only in respect of ex- thither, engage in first this thing and then that thing, perience and knowledge, but in respect of everything in plunge into one situation after another, all, as they say, life, the modern world is possessed by an appetite for for the sake of experience, I can think of no better quantity, instead of quality. Our civilisation could image for them than monkeys. Don’t tell me that they almost be defined as the scramble for quantity. Quan- are gathering experience which will one day be of value tity is supposed to be everything, in money, in goods, to them : they are simply eating innutritive dirt. in friends, in books, and, consequently, in experience Are you not too hard upon them? and in knowledge. We are all in it, and the most ab- I would I could be even harder. When I reflect on surd and impossible statements appear, therefore, to what it costs nowadays to disentangle one’s soul from be true. On the other hand, simple and truthful state- the lies in which we are brought up, and to keep it dis- ments appear to the modern mind to be untrue and entangled in the jungle of modern thought, I am ridiculous. If I should say, for example, that it is as angered past pity. Not one in ten of the people I have great a misfortune to experience too much or to know met is anybody in particular or anything in particular. too much, as it is to eat too much, or to be too wealthy, They have lost, if even they were born with it, the soul who would instantly believe it? God gave them. They select nothing, they reject Ah, but what is the too much? nothing, they try all things but hold fast to no thing. Why, too much, of course, is more than a man can Converse with them is a distraction, an irritation, a dis- use; and you will not deny that men here and there appointment and finally a loss. Besides, have you possess more wealth than they can use; and on re- noticed one thing about these walking appetites ? What flection you will not deny that individuals have more they call experiences are invariably vulgar. You hear experience and knowledge than they can use. We have of people deliberately entering squalid situations for both known, in fact, people who have been ruined by experience’ sake-have you ever heard of them malting too much experience and too much knowledge. an effort to create a noble situation or a noble character Sometimes, however, these have come unsought. for experience sake? You have not, and neither have I, Admitted. Nature and circumstance do, indeed, con- Their experience, in fact, is always a fall. tain a vast number of potential experiences which no- Your principle of selection is, then, what? body in his senses would desire to encounter. And it Well, the contrary of all this. Experience should be is against these undesirable experiences that our will selected from natural circumstance with an artist’s to avoid experience is a shield to some extent. The fastidiousness. Not all should be taken, but only so art of living, in fact, is in constant conflict with the raw much as can be transformed into beautiful character. material of life which nature and accident supply. As for the rest of life, our servants, as de l’IsIe Adam Happiest, therefore, is the man who can take what he said, can do that for us. 445

and in London period. Nine-tenths of the critics in England would Books Persons say of Balzac, were he at work to-day, that he was and Paris. writing himself out under the wicked persuasions of a literary agent. Unfortunately nine-tenths of the critics By Jacob Tonson. in England, or anywhere, have no notion whatever of the creative processes of art; if they had, they would ONEof the most interesting literary announcements that refrain from appearing ridiculous in the eyes of have appeared for a very long time was contained in a artists. . . . However, it doesn’t matter; or it won’t letter written last week by Mr. Eden Phillpotts to the matter in the end. For instance, Mr. Phillpotts has

“ Westminster Gazette ” in reference to a criticism of gone calmly forward, and his reputation has gone his latest novel in that journal. The criticism was ap- calmly forward. And those twenty-five volumes will preciative, but it suggested that Mr. Phillpotts might want some explaining away. Critics indeed will not perhaps advantageously consider the advisability of attempt to explain them away. They will forget all writing about something else than Dartmoor. Similar that they have said about over-production, monotony, hints have been offered by other recent critics of Mr. and so on; and will be as proud of those twenty-five Phillpotts’s work. Mr. Phillpotts now publishes a fact, volumes as though they were the veritable authors which he stated to a few intimate friends many years thereof. ago but which he otherwise has very sagaciously kept *+R to himself, namely, that his‘Dartmoor novels have been It is strange that critics, while bringing accusations conceived and executed on a regular plan which em- of monotony and uniformity against a writer who, braces the whole of the moor, each novel being “ a involved in a vast enterprise, carries it homogeneously fragment of the total impression. ” ’The enterprise was to a preconceived conclusion, will with equal gusto rail epical. It was begun eighteen years ago (“ Children of against an author who chooses to indulge in several the Mist ” being, I suppose, the first volume), and it different sorts of work. If a novelist, after writing a will be completed in twenty-five volumes. Of these, long, artistic novel, offers to the public a short, fan- twenty-two have been issued, two others are finished, tastic novel, the hair of critics will stand up in dismay and the final one is in hand. Even those of his con- and indignation. And that unfortunate author will be temporaries who are ambitious and who know the told that he is playing fast and loose with his reputa- capacity of the human brain for hard and continuous tion, that at best he is not increasing his reputation, labour, must be a little awed by the large magnificence and that in short he has no right to produce anything of Mr. Phillpotts’ undertaking. It will rank in courage but the most serious and high-class work of which in with any undertaking in the history of novel-writing. his finest moments he is capable. During the rest of Certainly never before were a small territory and an the time the theory is that he must be sterile, or that exceedingly small population imaginatively studied and at any rate he must not publish. There must be no rendered with such astounding thoroughness and com- sketches, no impressions, no diversions, and above all pleteness. The tors ought to be flattered. It is no larkishness. Only one word satisfactorily describes probable, however, that High Willy will remain the attitude of the fecund and various artist towards granitic before the tremendous compliment thus paid this theory. It is a word which will instantly present to his kingdom. *++ itself to the minds of all sane readers. The airiest larkishness of a genuine artist will outweigh tons of The enterprise, indeed, is perhaps splendid beyond serious stupidity. And be it remembered that serious the comprehension of this age, which only thrills at stupidity is always treated by critics with extreme the dimensions of bridges and steamboats. Often in deference-provided it is dull enough ! Any capricious reviews I have seen Mr. Phillpotts’ perseverance dis- trifle of Stendhal’s is worth all the fiction that René Bazin ever wrote or will write. And is not an im- dained. I do not remember to have seen it praised. pertinence by Cunninghame Graham more valuable than On the contrary, Mr. Phillpotts has been accused of the complete works of ---? And now I shall be told all manner of crimes, including over-production. The that I have a grievance against critics. Not a bit ! truth is that he has never over-produced. He happens I know what the exacerbating difficulties of criticism to be a writer of immense and perfectly disciplined crea- are-especially criticism of fiction. It has happened to tive power; and he has simply produced in accordance me to review an average ofa novel per day every day for three years at a stretch. And I have retained one with this power. He is a man who knows his quality (among others) in common with critics-that business profoundly and who cannot be idle, being of being human. Literary criticism is on the whole always excited to action by his irrepressible artistic decidedly better than the rapacious proprietors of news- faculty. Such a man is bound to incur the blame of papers, who reward it so badly, have any right to the uncreative and the undisciplined, who try to fix one expect. Nevertheless, I think that critics who tell standard of production for the entire republic of letters. authors the plain truth once a day should occasionally hear some fraction of the plain truth about themselves. One of my publishers once said to me, menacingly, that *** no novelist who produced more than one book a year would be taken seriously by the public. My reply was Last week, in speaking of “ Marie Claire,” I said that if he would kindly attend to printing, binding, that the author was not getting the author’s share of the profits on the very successful sale of “Marie advertisement and distribution, I would endeavour to Claire,” and that I did not know who was getting the attend to my reputation myself. Let an idle, careless, author’s share. The publishers, Messrs. Chapman and popular writer dash off a book once in every two and Hall, have satisfied me that they are paying quite or three years, and the entire critical press will say : proper royalties on the circulation (ten thousand copies “ Ah! Here at any rate is a novelist who does not up to date). I am very glad to make known this fact. over-produce, who loves the work for the work’s sake !” Messrs. Chapman and Hall’s contract, however, is not And a lot more of the most nauseating clichés. An with the author direct. I need not say that I brought no accusation of any kind against anybody. An agree- undisciplined writer who does one book in two years ment is an agreement, and an absolute sale is an abso- may easily be more over-productive than a disciplined lute sale, no matter how the financial consequences writer who publishes three or four books in the same thereof may work out. 446

Amen because they were conquerors. The true reason Theology.-VI . is that “Time was ripe ” for both the happenings. M. Oxon. The statement, “As above so below,” which is the By B. key to the situation, is a very ancient one. It does not IT seems that man’s next step is in some way carry any weight in these days; in fact it is impossible connected with overcoming the inversion suggested by that it should when a man is looked on as a more or the diagrams of chrysalis caustic, etc., and in doing less homogeneous mass made of bones, flesh, blood, and this his help lies with the Word which has returned to brains with or without a rather nebulous soul according the bosom of the Father (having never left it), to individual taste, and when we speak of a “normal ” after making its clear impression here on earth. man and really think that the word means something The same basal idea is expressed in the Vedas. more than “average.” No one is so foolish as to speak There we hear that the gods fixed the Yupa, or of a normal dog. We know that there are varieties of stake to which the sacrifice was bound, with its dogs each normal in its own way. An “average” dog point in the earth, that man might not become a we generally call a mongrel. Yet Lombroso’s school god. But it was dug up again, and planted with its still flourishes and classes geniuses and criminals point upward. This stake is, in one aspect, the back- together with as much justification as one might class bone of man along which flows the river of life with greyhounds and pugs together because they are neither its two banks-the Egyptian Tat which is the backbone of them a fox terrier. The only escape from this state of Osiris. In most religions this river plays a great of things is to try and learn a little about ourselves. part and is symbolised by the river of the land. The To get this further knowledge the first thing Ganges and the Nile were both the continuations of the necessary is to free ourselves from the word heavenly Ganges and heavenly Nile, which appeared “ normal” and the quasi-moral obligation which it suddenly in this world without any geographical details seems to imply, of remaining normal. It is to our life about their source except in a mythological form. They in our own ‘‘inner” world that this applies rather than both ended in the Great Ocean. In the New Testament to the common “outer” world. We owe it to our conditions have changed. The Great Ocean has been neighbours to remain as normal as possible in the cut off and the lower end of the river ends in the Dead common world. The whole social structure rests on Sea, while the Sea of Galilee has become the place of this basis. It may be well that the abnormal, who finds happenings, and Jerusalem with its “Temple of King himself hemmed in too tightly by the conventions, Solomon” is only visited for special purposes. I would should struggle; he may loosen the bonds a little for note that gll in Hebrew suggests the idea of “lying himself and others, but he must not be surprised or open ’’ and ‘(source” (? cf. Gr. galene). But the hurt when he is at last dragged down and killed. Deus dangers of word juggling I shall refer to later. non facit saltus. No doubt the Yupa is a “Phallic” symbol too, as are In the outer world new adventures are becoming all “ perpendiculars” and “ levels,” but it becomes rather scarce. The laborious difficulty of finding anything monotonous when our authorities can see no other worth doing is obvious all around. But inside we are meaning in them. The letter T is a terribly phallic constantly meeting most promising openings for adven- symbol, and if any one chooses to call all the words in ture only to pass them by in a semi-automatic way, as which “T” appears “phallic words” he is, of course, at being unmanly, abnormal, sentimental, “ wrong,” dan- liberty to do so, but it shows a frame of mind rather like gerous. Yet any one of them may lead us to a treasure that of the little schoolboy. “ Levels” are “ female,” house. The whole world of Arthurian legend and “ perpendiculars” are ‘‘ male. ” Levels are fluid and quests is waiting for us. But we only say, “No sane unstable, perpendiculars are stable and strong. [From man would do that now,” or object that the whole thing another point of view it is the levels which are stable, is ‘‘subjective” and hence of no value. As if we had a because they support the perpendiculars!] T and standard by which to decide what is subjective and mean quite different things. And even here the diffi- what objective ! As regards value, facts demonstrate culties do not end, for if we are not sure whether we that the subjective something we call music is worth are on our head or our heels we are unable to decide more than certain hard shillings. The only part of this which way up the symbol stands. new world that may with any kind of justice be called The craze for phallicism is as tiresome as Sun Myths “subjective” is the dramatisation, and how far the and Golden Boughs. They are all true in their own objective world is safe from this same imputation is octave and foolish when transferred to the wrong doubtful. Moreover, the dramatisation is the one octave. But there is no escape from this so long as undesirable part of the whole thing. In the first place man only thinks himself to be a bifid radish. All our it leads the weak-minded to confuse the inside world condescension in permitting to the ancients the use of with the outside. The two are very different, the rules poetic license is entirely misplaced. All the things of the game in each are quite opposite, and if we come which a poet describes, if he is a real poet, are quite as to the state in which we do not know whether we are real as brick walls and railway trains. on our head or our heels we are called, and quite Using the scheme which I am here postulating, rightly, mad. Such a one was Don Quixote. But if we one sees, sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, keep the two apart, if we recognise that Sinbad’s dia- the close connection between their various symbols, monds will find no market in Hatton Garden, and that and that this should arise from mere chance though we are sure there are twice forty thieves around, in such a complicated structure seems to me yet it is no use looking for them in the cellar with a most improbable. For example :-Ra, the Sun, is kettle, we shall have the wherewithal to pass away the spelled with the same letter, the picture of a mouth, time without the spending of sixpence a day in latest which also spells a door and a goose (a white bird), who editions. The other reason for avoiding dramatisation lays the world egg. Amen, “the hidden one,” is the is that it perpetuates, instead of breaking down, our same apparently as the Hebrew amon meaning tendency to be mind-bound, and so keeps us from that “stability.” And Amen is always drawn with a bar immediate self-knowledge which we want. reaching from the ground to the back of his head. How does all this differ from dreams? It does not Much the same idea is suggested by Guillaume Postel differ much, they are almost the same. But there are who speaks of Nexus immobilitatis centri terreni cum dreams and dreams. It is no use to try and convince Dei immobilitate. His wife is Mut-Mwt in Hebrew by argument any one who has no “mixture” by which means “ instability” (cf. aequor, aequus) and mwth to understand the words we use, but I would state, as means death. They are the great “perpendicular” and something of an expert in dreams, and in the hope that ‘(level.” So Amon-Ra is a different “aspect” or others may care to try and verify the facts for them- “person ” from Ra; it is not a case of one city forcing selves, that the variety of type in dreams is very great. its beliefs and the change of name on another, as the The different types are soon recognisable, from the Egyptologists put it, any more than the Jews forced heavy, complicated, and futile dream of the “lowest” Christianity on the world. It is quite as right to say calculating mind-“ up” to the dream which one cannot that the Thebans became conquerors because they remember to have had (!) but which makes the world recognised Amen, as to say that they spread the cult of a different place from what it was the night before. 447

There are mutual and complementary dreams in which sacrificial fires. By counting these different states in two dreamers are involved, dreams from which one can groups or over again, once on the “way out” and once extract useful items of knowledge otherwise unknown- on the “way home,” we can make the number almost much as people in trance can read languages of which what we please, but it is not a question of a mere whim, they have, in their waking state, no knowledge- for in each case the suggestion involved differs, much as besides the clever story-telling dreams, such as Steven- when with the common chord of Do and its inversions son made use of. King Arthur’s Kingdom is still open we name all the notes on. the key-board. This is done to all adventurers, though now they more often ride a freely by all the old writers. It rests with the reader to bicycle than a charger and swords are out of date. understand which notes of the scale they have chosen, But when once we learn that the drama is only built and either to make sense or nonsense of what he reads. round “ happenings ”-kennings whether “ external ” or The five as we know them are the worlds of matter, *‘internal ”-it is all the same at bottom. emotion, thought, life, and inspiration, or in the Of course, I do not really mean that dreams and fairy language we have been using, matter, canning, ken- tales are the only things worth considering, and least ning, and being, the latter regarded either as the sea of all that “psychic” adventures are to be sought, for of Galilee or as the Waters of Jordan, or again as the these seem to me worse than useless except under very Dead Sea. They are also those in which the mineral, special circumstances, but that we are woefully igno- vegetable, animal and “psychic ” kingdoms have each rant of what is inside us, and shall so remain as long their chief manifestation. But no “ organisation” can as we consider what is outside as alone real and valu- take place in any one world by itself ; organisation is able. a sign that an influence from “outside” has appeared The unexplored lands “inside” us are very exten- in the world, as with a magnet and filings. This is the sive, and it would be useless to try and describe them same idea as that which I previously named “im- here in detail. Poets describe their inhabitants and plantation,.” scenery, and many descriptions of their geography are to be found in writers of different schools and different dates. At first sight these seem to be very contradic- Recent Verse. tory. The number of parts into which man is divided By Jack Collings Squire. vary, their names vary, as also do their relative im- “Verses.” By H. Belloc. (Duckworth.) portance. But this is due to differences in the “per- “ The Hours of Fiammetta.” By Rachel Annand Taylor. spective ” employed by the different writers, either (Elkin Mathews.) owing to the point of view which they are compelled “The Revolt of Woman.” By Vivian Locke Ellis. (Locke to occupy, or to the meaning which they wish to Ellis.) emphasise. We will not consider the physical body, “ Lyric Moods.” By R. Crawford. (Lothian, Melbourne.) or shell, for its complexity is at present beyond our ‘‘ Songs of a Shopman.” By Arthur Hickmott. (Fifield.) reach. It is said to contain sixteen organs, or parts, “ In the Net of Night.” By W. W. Marsh. (Elkin Mathews.) “Britannia Poems.” By Hedley Vicars Storey. (Shelley through which the “moon ” travels in a month, as the Book Agency, Oxford.) sun does through the heavens in a year. I think that ‘‘ Little Songs.” By Ella Erskine. (Truslove and Hanson.) the sub-division which suits the present day as well as “Melody in the Heart.” By A. B. Leakey. (Smith and Co., any other is that of St. Paul ; body, soul, and spirit, Bath.) dividing the body into two parts-the living body and “Eire and other Poems.” By Robin Flower. (Locke Ellis.) “Flashes from the Orient” (Scene 111.-Autumn). By John the earthly body, or the “force body ” and the “matter body.” This latter is an entirely separate world from Hazelhurst. (Hazell, Watson and Viney.) that in which “we” really live-a Jerusalem which our THEREis good verse written to-day if one only takes living body visits from time to time, but of which all the trouble to find it; though very little happens to be included in the present collection. The trouble has “our ” knowledge is at best second-hand. The chief interest at present centres round the soul, using the to be admitted, and unless a man takes as much plea- word as a zoological rather than an anatomical one. sure in the products of imbecility as one does in those The soul I shall consider as having three aspects- of genius he may have a dull time of it. He has con- canning, kenning, and being-though this is of course stantly to exercise that certainly invaluable gift very superficial and inadequate, just as when we speak possessed by the “ Chrysanthus whom Petronius men- of head, heart, and hand we have not really described tions, who was willing (the phrase need not be trans- the body. These may be called “mind,” emotion, and lated) “ quadrantem de stercore mordicus tollere. ” vitality. They are not clearly separate “parts,” but But there is the consolation that the more arduous the ways of looking at one whole; they roughly represent getting the more appreciated the prize. Of the majority the scientific, the “religious,” or psychic, and the “sub- of the eleven volumes hereintofore mentioned it may conscious” or “health” parts of us. These are the fairly be said that had their authors suffered mental possessions which moth and rust do not corrupt, which miscarriages the world might have been less full, but man picks up again as he comes down after the re- would not have been poorer. treating flood. The whole forms our individuality, Mr. Hilaire Belloc is a poet in his spare time, and frequently called our personality, though I prefer the consequently has never developed a specific poetic style. former word. If ever (to adapt the phraseology of Mr. Serjeant As we have seen, the word exists in three different Arabin) there was a poet whose poems could be more states in the mind, the activity, and the breath of the easily identified from his prose than this poet’s, then speaker, and then as actual sound outside him, all four that poet is this poet. But he is generally natural and nearly always exhilarating. When his good angel puts of these states being as different in “ dimension” as were the light and the wind in our previous diagram. it into his head to write a ballad on consols (which, Further, as the pattern made by the sound, it exists in time was, were at 82) he does so instead of knitting a fifth state almost more different still. This is said to his brows and inditing, like Mrs. Rachel Annand be a diagram of the universe. Through the whole Taylor, grave sentences like “Take back this justice, scheme there runs also a triplicity which, as we are give us thuribles.” He knows what a thurible is and appreciates it at its proper value, but he does not write using “ space words,” we must say appears both “ verti- cally ” and “horizontally.” As we have said, Man has about it, being aware that articles more congenial to spirit, soul, and body; this is a vertical triplicity. His his spirit, his style and the atmosphere of his day, are soul is canning, kenning, and the being “between ” Jews, Sussex and barrels of beer. The bulk of the poems in the present volume may be divided into three them ; this is a “horizontal ” triplicity. So it is with the universe; there are “three worlds, and one,” which is sections. First there are the satires which are like either the parent or the-child, the egg in which the metrical chunks from “ Emmanuel Burden ” concen- worlds are born or the egg which they produce. These trated and quintessentralsyed, not translated after the five are, it would seem, the simplest statement of the manner of Mr. Brady and Mr. Tate. Of such, the case. The tortoise that upheld the world is Brahma, supreme example is the poem addressed “to a Lord, that is the Universe. A tortoise is called among his who in the House of Lords said that those who opposed the South African adventure confused soldiers other names the “ five-limbed. ” There are also five 448

with money grabbers.” Here is that poignant refer- and all the world were young. “I see an ox,” they ence to “the sacred height used to run, “it is a big ox. We too have an ox. Do Up on Tugela side you see the cat and the rat on the mat? I have no Where those three hundred fought with Beit, mat, but I have a rat ”-and so on. And fair young Wernher died. In Mr. Locke Ellis’s book are an allegory, written Here also that memorable etching of with dignity of metre and chastity of language, ‘hut Tall Galtman silent on his horse, rather tenuous and obscure; a blank verse poem about Superb against the dawn; a slave girl in Babylon who naturally became queen and here also the poet calls up once more to a nation and as naturally had a lover; and a number of lyrics. which, alas, forgets only too rapidly the glories of the It is in these that Mr. Ellis shows at his best. He does past : not affect subtlety or profundity of thought ; after all The little mound where Eckstein stood, most good lyrics are founded upon the most gruesomely And gallant Albu fell, commonplace thoughts-and are bound to be. But And Oppenheim, half-blind with blood, contemplation of the broad processes of life and nature Went fording through the rising flood. inspire him to some very rememberable things. In One almost wishes that in a day when the epic has such poems as “Sea Voices,” and especially the passed into desuetude, Mr. Belloc would writean epic “ Garden of Age,” he uses old material in a very charm- of the South African War. Mr. Alfred Beit as a hero ing way. He usually steers clear of stilted language, would be, at all events, a bit brisker than Milton’s and his rhythmical artifice, never aggressive, produces Adam. now and then marked musical and emotional effect. The second species of Mr. Belloc’s verses are those All the way from Melbourne comes “Lyric Moods,” very direct, simple and exhilarating expressions of his and some of the poems in the volume have appeared in own joy in life like the drinking song beginning : journals of the standing of the “Lone Hand,” the “ They sell good beer at Haslemere,” the irresistible “ Native Companion,” and “ Steele Rudd’s Magazine.” lilts from “The Path to Rome” and the songs about All rights are reserved, and the fly-leaf bears the opti- his own country. Now and then-the same thing may mistic inscription “ First Edition. ” Nothing human is be observed in his essays-the simplicity both of the alien to the author; he writes about it all. The Deity language and the thought gets just a little too sophisti- is, of course, not exempt; “I saw God in a dream go cated and the spell is broken, but in many of these by,” and “Methought I saw God dying” (the title is verses the artistry is perfect. tactfully put in Latin-“Mors Dei ”) are but two of For the third section I confess no manner of liking. many. The last thirty pages are taken up with “Frag- In his carols and the like, and in ballads such as “The ments” on Thought, Love’s Mesmerism, Mind, Mora- Little Serving Maid” (which has a captivating begin- lity, Death, Quiet Joy, Christian Burial, A Mother’s ning nevertheless), he is guilty of art nouveau; the sim- Loss, Truth, Love, Sleep and Death, Maiden’s Heart, plicity is laid on too thick and is all one’s eye. Nobody Spring, Theory and Practice, Business and Pleasure, questions the depth of Mr. Belloc’s Catholicism; but he Beauty, Women’s Eyes, Bottom’s Dream, and kindred is a very hearty man who has been for his sins in the topics. This is an Imperialist journal, and my own House of Commons, has a strong vein of joyous sentiments towards our brothers and cousins across the cynicism and has passed through the fires of modern sea who inhabit the daughters of the Great Mother thought, and should not, therefore, write addresses to have always been of the friendliest. the Virgin ending : I would not be misunderstood ; If you will Mother nie I willingly admit that blood Till I grow old, Is thicker than water is by far, I will hang in your chapel But I cannot say these verses are. A ship of pure gold. As Mr. Hickmott writes about street-corner propa- Our gullets are too small for it. ganda, shops, and adverse votes as coming down on Mrs. Taylor, as revealed in her last book, is a sad Mammon with laudable thumps, one is strongly pre- case. She has an extremely subtle mind, great spiri- judiced in his favour, even though he does use tual and literary culture (if those be good things), an “palsièd” as a rhyme for “bread.” He is certainly ability to seize and analyse the most complex and natural, and a man, and he is sensitive to the beauty of fragile emotions, plenty of metrical power and (if the the things which are around us all-when we are on our word may be forgiven) a virility which appears even holidays. If he stuck to prose he would always hold in her worst passages. But . . . . she is after those his reader. thuribles. Hher subject-the strivings, doubts, heart- Mr. Marsh has scored one splendid success. He has burnings, and illuminations of a highly intellectual and committed in verse the schoolboy error of lays for lies, emotional woman as her conception of love develops which, even a hundred years ago (Basil Hall’s travels from the romantic into the higher conception--’ is natur- are my authority) provoked the comment : “What? ally not provocative of clarity, but Mrs. Taylor by the Do you mean eggs? ” Here is the casket which en- use of an extraordinarily incrusted terminology inten- shrines the gem :- sifies the obscurity of her poems past all bearing. We A STAR. don’t mind occasionally having to stop and think hard One star when we are reading the works of modern poets ; but That lays in the names of all the devils, it is a little too strong to Up through the gray gaunt silence of the night ask us to keep a dictionary at our elbows as we read. Through pathless ways A simple phrase like “quench my thirst,” becomes in Illimitably far. Or is it just this modern literary dare-devilry? the Taylorese “antidote my drouth ; ” she is equipped with enough chalcedonies, sardonyxes, spikenard, appe- An enormous book, beautifully printed and bound in lions and peripheries to stock several jewellers’ and just that shade of cinnamon which (as everybody who chemists’ and a Royal Observatory ; as regards the is anybody knows) is the touchstone of the soul-such, number of syllables to the average word she leaves O ! ugly reader, is or are “Britannia Poems.” On the Dante Rossetti panting many laps behind. And here cover is this terse epigram, like a diamond in its con- are a few of her words and lines :-ensorcelise, cilice, centration and glitter :- “ proud prothalamia chaunting enraptured things,” “ by I rose above the King and Parliament, gorgeous dualisms of vain desire,” sorcelled hydromel, Above the Constitution and the Law. And slowly a great vision came and went : larva-lease, “ mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist. ” Usually speaking, it is unfair to make choppy extracts Britannia for the first time then I saw. of this character, but with this writer it is honestly a Mr. Storey never lets England out of his sight. He real relief when one comes to an “ and” or a “the.” If addresses John Bull in his preface, and when he sus- Mrs. Taylor is not to waste her undoubtedly great pects that his country is forgetting Trafalgar Day he powers the best thing she can do is to go into “train- rebukes her severely with “ England, cease this folly.’’ ing” with words of one syllable. She might compose Spare the rod and spoil The Mother, we may presume. a book or two on the lines of those we knew when we The majority of his poems are long satires; Jingoes, 449

rich people and Suffragettes coming in turn under his he can use without offending one of the most prosy of lash. Even those who do not agree with .Mr. Storey’s ‘‘prose” words, scientific or other. In the present arguments will certainly appreciate the mould in which volume with sonnets on “The Business Man’s Face” he casts them ; and no one who buys “Britannia and “The Cyclist’s Face ” are scores of others about Poems ” will regret it. That is said seriously. fields, woods, flowers, and the earth in Autumn, many Eighteen small pages, a paper cover and a very of them showing the knowledge of a botanist and the charming portrait of the author are what one gets from spirit of a St. Francis combined. Daily he looks at his Miss Erskine. Here and there she clearly shows what garden, and the landscape and the heavens, and keeps is called “ a delicate fancy” and a power of doing water- his poetic diary; and though now and then his metre colour sketches in words. But why does she think limps or an infelicitous allusion appears, his sheer this is a complete poem? truthfulness and love of nature are continually bring- Good-day, little love, good-day, ing out of him lines or whole sonnets, shining with soft Together we’ll wander all way, lights and colours, which have about them the big Good-day, little love, good-day. consoling quality that is not to be found in the work of Good-nlight, little love, good-night, scores of far more clever men to-day. Quotation would Though ’tis Spring morn wondrous bright, not do him justice. He must be read whole, if at all. Good-night, little love, good-night. God speed, little love, God speed, Thou dear one all my need, God speed, little love, God speed. Drama. On the back of Miss Leakey’s booklet is a nice piece By Ashley Dukes, of white silk cord of the dance-programme species. Inside, every other page bears devotional verse, the ‘‘ The Witness for the Defence” (St. James’ Theatre). opposite pages being inscribed with appropriate texts. STELLABALLANTYNE’S taste in husbands was undistin- The longest poem is called “Don’t go too far, Daddie.” guished. So, by inference, is Mr. A. E. W. Mason’s In successive verses the author (assuming the person- taste in plays. His choice of a heroine condemns him. ality of a father) tells us how his little boy said “Don’t In concerning himself with Stella Ballantyne and her go too Far, Daddie, Don’t go too Far” every morning affairs, he joins the great dramatic middle-class where as he, the father, left for business. He heard the same tragical burdens are thrust upon the unfit, and intrigue words in the same tiny voice piping in his ear as he was is used to extract a meretricious interest from the unin- about to forge a cheque, again when he was on the teresting. Where, in fact, the characters are character- verge of taking the glass too much that inebriates and less. does not cheer, and again when he was nearly dying. To return, however, to Stella Ballantyne and her On each occasion the check acted. Probably it would taste in husbands. The first, of course, was Ballan- have been of no use to attempt to kill the child, as he tyne. She married him because she was a poor, un- would have made the same efficacious observation then. protected girl, and because Henry Thresk, ambitious to ,Being an Irish poet, Mr. Flower is bound to bring succeed at the Bar, wanted no encumbrances. Her in little winds of faery, grey skies, winding roads, deep leisure for repentance proved stormy. Ballantyne was glens of Loneliness, roses of no earthly bud, and the an Anglo-Indian official, lived remotely in a gloomy points of the compass, of which latter Irish poets are tent at Rajputana, drank heavily, and bullied his wife. very fond. But he adds a considerable amount of his In a fit of terror, half by accident and-half by earnest, own to the common Hibernian store, and though one she shot him with a rook rifle. She was arrested and feels that one has heard some of his lyrics before, there tried for murder. The defence was weak until Thresk are others in which he asserts himself. The fullest stepped in. He had been dining with the Ballantynes of vigour and freest of mannerism are the sonnets at on the evening of the catastrophe, and he supplied cir- the end of the book, in some of which imaginations aïe cumstantial evidence that the crime was probably corn- set down in verse which has something of the majestic mitted by the owner of a mysterious “lean, brown, in its roll. The one beginning “Look from the cliff, hand,” alleged to have been seen groping beneath the look out upon the sea,” with its subsequent lines :- hangings of the tent by Ballantyne himself. Thresk was Our ship swings at the anchor far below sceptical as to that “lean, brown hand,” and at the With folded sails and silence round the keel moment clearly thought it a symptom of delirium is an example. But it is a pity that sonnet-writers will tremens ; but it served to acquit Stella. After the trial not give “Eternity” and “Infinity” a rest. Those two both returned to England. Thresk went back to the articles have been scandalously overworked for sonnet Bar, and Stella settled in the village of Little Beding. purposes. The second husband presented himself two years Finally, there is Mr. John Hazelhurst, who has just later. He was Dick Hazlewood, son of a sentimental published the third of four substantial collections of philosopher, who had befriended Mrs. Ballantyne on sonnets named after the four seasons. “A Thousand principle because the world of Little Beding had doubts and One Mornings with the Poesy” is his sub-title. as to her innocence, definitely expressed in a general The first volume came into my hands about three years refusal to call. Stella, in fact, was under a cloud, and ago ; I bought the second immediately it appeared ; Dick proposed chivalrously to disperse it by shedding here is the third ; and I am thirsting for the fourth. his own rays of indisputable virtue in the shape of a For Mr. Hazelhurst is either a genius or a very plau- formal engagement. It will be seen that Dick was an sible imitation of one. If he had Wordsworth’s intel- improvement upon Ballantyne ; but he was a tiresome, lect and Wordsworth’s artistry, he would be a second colourless young man with no more positive quality Wordsworth. He writes with solemnity and genuine than an over-developed sense of proprietorship. Stella freshness and force on any conceivable subject, from a herself had only moved into another groove as a poor, Hollyhock to a Sewing Machine, and from a Worm Cut unprotected widow. Both the sentimentality and the In Two by a Cart Wheel to the Comic Opera “Flora- philosophy of Mr. Hazlewood, senior, proved unsubstan- dora.” In his first series there was actually a sonnet tial in the test case. He was prepared to circulate un- on the evolution of the lucifer matches. After men- limited pamphlets on humanitarianism and prison re- tioning the days of flints, tinder-boxes and steel, he form, but not to accept Stella as daughter-in-law worked up to a climax with :- without investigation. Accordingly, he sent for Thresk But now the phosphuretted spill ignites to clear the matter up, and meanwhile Dick and Stella By rapid friction on a roughened plane, were married privately in London. And swiftly carbonaceous cressets lights. Marriage (in the theatre at least) is indissoluble ; and And he does it with a seriousness that makes the reader so here Mr. Mason’s play is to all intents and pur- realise that he is in the presence of a man who can poses over. In his last three acts he has only one look at skies and flowers and lucifer matches alike with dramatic card to play-that of revealing the fact of a childlike and godlike gaze undimmed and undistorted the secret marriage-and with a fine sense of economy by our beastly modern sense of humour. He even he keeps it up his sleeve as long as possible. Much wrote a sonnet about a Budget (not the Budget), and longer, indeed, than is necessary. He has the novelist- 450

playwright’s vice of merely discussing during the acts But he asks four questions; which I fancy I can quickly highly dramatic events which have occurred between answer. First, in whose eyes but ours has the Party System lost credit? I say in nearly everybody’s. If this were a them. One long scene conveys only the impression of free country, I could mention offhand a score of men within page after page read aloud from a law report. a stone’s throw: an innkeeper, a doctor, a shopkeeper, a Thresk’s scene with Stella in the third act is such lawyer, a civil servant. As it is, I may put it this way. in another stream of words flowing monotonously to the a large debating society I proposed to attack the Party single cataract effect of “ I married Dick last week.” System, and for a long time I could not get an opposer. The metaphor holds good, for the trend is always At last I got one. He defended the Party System on the downward, and the play ends at last in the illimitable ground that people must be bamboozled more or less. ocean of its kind; there to remain until some other Second, he asks if the Party System does not govern the dramatist evaporates his quantum of vapour, forms his country to the content of most citizens. I answer that Englishmen are happy under the Party System solely and cloud of intrigue, hurls his stage thunderbolt, scatters exactly as Romans were happy under Nero. That is, not his shower and sets the stream flowing once again. because government was good, but because Life is good, Its course is well worn. A crime, a mystery, a mis- even without good government. Nero’s slaves enjoyed Italy, understanding or two. A woman irrelevantly married not Nero. Modern Englishmen enjoy England, but cer- to a man named Dick, a bachelor desolate but de- tainly not the British Constitution. The legislation is de- bonair. For the rest, a sparkle of wit in the shallows tested, wherever it is even felt. The other day a Cambridge and an increment of bathos in the depths. The area of Don complained that, when out bicycling with his boys, he had to leave them in the rain while he drank a glass of cider, irrigation is not extensive. Count the whole series of human souls between a coster- The acting in “The Witness for the Defence ” is monger and a Cambridge Don, and you will see a nation in more interesting than the play. Miss Ethel Irving, as mutiny. Stella, is none too well cast. Her conception of serious Third, “What substitute, etc., etc.’’ Here, again, the as compared with light comedy acting seems to be a answer is simple and indeed traditional. I suggest we flattening of voice and gesture. But Mr. Mason gives should do what was always suggested in the riddles and her few opportunities of relief. Mr. Sydney Valentine, revolutions of the recent centuries. In the seventeenth in the part of a family solicitor, is self-possessed and century phrase, I suggest that we should “call a free Par- liament.” saturnine to perfection. As for Mr. George Alexander, Fourth, ‘‘ Is Democracy compatible with Parliamentary he seems now to have abandoned for ever the Pinero Government ?” God forbid. Is God compatible with Church raisonneur of the Cayley Drummle, Hilary Jesson, Peter Government? Why should He be? It is the other things Mottram type. His new rôle is that of the interesting that have to be compatible with God. A Church can only be bachelor of middle age who always wants to marry the a humble effort to utter God. A Parliament can only be a heroine, always should, and somehow never does. The humble effort to express Man. But for all that, there is a final curtain invariably discovers him in an attitude of deal of commonsense left in the world, and people do know gentlemanly renunciation. The part may be unprofit- when priests or politicians are honestly trying to express a mystery-and when they are only taking advantage of an able, but he plays it charmingly. Restraint is a ambiguity. finished art with him. Mark his “Oh !” when Stella G. K. CHESTERTON. tells him she is married, and you have the furthest limit ** * of his self-abandonment, the diapason chord of an “ THE GREAT ILLUSION.” organ in miniature. His reticence envelops the whole Sir,-In criticising Mr. Norman Angell’s book, I referred scheme of production at the St. James’s, giving it an to several minor fallacies in it, such as his views on duel- air of unassuming dignity which is rare enough in most ling, and the importance he ascribed to its alleged cessa- of our theatres. tion. I plainly stated, however, as everyone who reads the review will see, that I looked upon Mr. Angell’s materialism “ Rococo” (Court Theatre). as the greatest defect in his work, saying that nations were not actuated by purely materialistic ends, as he imagined, Mr. Granville Barker’s new farce begins with one nor yet by sentimental tendencies, as the other school of anti- scrimmage and ends with another. The somewhat un- war people imagines; but by what one of our best-known necessary interval between them is filled by a conversa- psychologists has conveniently labelled Will to Power, just tional rough-and-tumble, and the cause of all the as an earlier psychologist labelled the same instinct Will bickering is a vase held by the family of Underwood to Live. and claimed by the family of Uglow. In the second Arising out of this statement of mine, Mr. Kirkby wrote scrimmage a dramatic climax (sublime inspiration !) is a letter on the position of “Socialism under S. Verdad,” if the will-to-power theory were assumed to be correct. In achieved by the smashing of the vase, and the curtain reply to Mr. Kirkby-and not in connection with anything is allowed to descend. One laughs a good deal. It that Mr. Angell had said in his book, or anything that I is probable, however, that the Underwood-Uglow had said about it-I instanced the Russian land system, family party would be just as amusing at breakfast or which was both an example of Communistic Socialism and at lunch or at family prayers. The jokes about Uncle of its decline owing to this innate tendency known as Will Mortimer’s wig and his bald head and his need of to Power. Arising out of Mr. Kirkby’s letter also, and again not in a sanitary skull-cap are evidently commonplaces of connection with anything in Mr. Angell’s book, I casually conversation in this vicarage drawing-room, and they mentioned the spread of Syndicalism in France and its are certainly eternal in their particular appeal. opposition to Parliamentary Socialism, and I instanced it For the rest, Mr. Barker’s realistic exhibition of bad to Mr. Kirkby as a menace to Socialism. manners (not quite the same thing as farce) is complete. Mr. Angell, however, when endeavouring to call me to It should have been given as a curtain-raiser to “ Mis- account in your last week’s issue, deliberately drags a alliance ’’ of blessed memory. To perform it after Mr. paragraph from my letter to Mr. Kirkby, definitely states that it refers to his own book, “The Great Illusion,” and Masefield’s (‘Tragedy of Nan ” is an affectation. thereupon proceeds to trounce me. I think, Sir, I am cor- There are contrasts and contrasts. rect in saying that such methods of controversy are happily unknown either to those who write for THE NEW AGE, or to those who read it. In this paper, at least, we do not enter into controversy merely for the purpose of vanquishing LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. an opponent, but in order to arrive at the truth. In all THE PARTY SYSTEM. my experience-diplomatic, political, or literary-I have Sir,-I have only just fully realised that a gentleman sign- never yet known one of the parties to a controversy to take a letter written in reply to someone else, and then to found ing himself “ Political Journalist ” accuses my friend Belloc, my brother and myself of a particular fault: a timid shrink- an argument upon it as if it had been written in, reply to ing from controversy. It must make you laugh monstrously himself. if you remember the happy days when Belloc and I sprawled I regret that I have had to take up so much of your space all over your paper, till the joke was so old that it got into with this explanation, but I feel that it is necessary in the “Punch.” We can’t write in every paper at once; we do unusual circumstances. our best. But as to whether I rise to the high standard I should be perfectly within my rights if I refused to take any further notice of Mr. Angell’s letter. But, in order of “courage” required by “ Political Journalist,” I have but a simple thing to say. I shall always be glad to tell “Poli- to avoid all possible misunderstanding on the part of your tical Journalist” my views, and to put my name at the end readers, I may say that anyone who came into contact with of them. the Syndicalist leaders at the time of the French railway 451

strike last winter, as I did, or who even read about what they recognise monogamy at all, and even the later stages of said and did in newspapers of all shades of opinion, would barbaric society did so very imperfectly. But in this have no difficulty in deciding whether or not they are I see no reason why to-day we should wickedly and heart- opposed to Parliamentary Socialism. They are. The Syn- lessly bind men and women together with legal handcuffs. dicalists may, of course, assert that they and they only are [So far as Socialists are concerned I might point out that the real Socialists, and that the Socialists in the Chamber Modern Socialism looks forward to a future social state in are not Socialists at all, or that they are, as Mr. Angell which more than one feature of earlier society shall reassert chooses to call them, classic Socialists. This is not my itself as modified by the higher complexity involved in such a point. What I contended was that the Syndicalists are so social state.] Says my respected critic :-“ It may therefore dissatisfied with the Socialism professed by the so-called interest Mr. Belfort Bax to know that Gibbon, after review- classic Socialists that they prefer to call their own creed ing the course of Roman marriages,” wrote in favour of the Syndicalism. Signor Ferrero, who also professes to be a eternal llegal handcuff! This, with the previous passage, Socialist, has borne me out in this statement. If members shows Senhor de Bxaganza Cunha in the light of a of both parties go on wrangling about the meaning of the humorist (conscious or unconscious) given to the practice word Socialism, and try to back up their respective views known as “teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs.” No, by appeals to Karl Marx, that is not my affair. my worthy Senhor, it does not in the least “interest” me to So much for one of Mr. Angell’s points-remember that know (what, for the rest, I knew probably as long as my he refers to this point as if I had mentioned it in connec- kind informant has known it), to wit, that Edward Gibbon tion with his book, the fact being that I never did so. HIS held reactionary views on divorce as on other matters. What other point is that no report of a duel between English- on earth the ‘opinions of an old 18th century Tory gentle- men ever appeared in “Le Journal.” He has asked the man, who, in his later years at least was prepared to back editor, it seems, who “tells me categorically that never to up any long-established institution, from Divine Right to his knowledge has the report of a duel fought by English- the Inquisition, have to do with us to-day I altogether fail men in France ever appeared in the columns of ‘Le Jour- to see! Certainly they do not impress me, neither do the nal.”’ Let Mr. Angell jog the memory of his friend the somewhat limited facts on which he based them even seem editor, or add to his knowledge. When a young English to lend them colour. nobleman died on December 30, 1909, grotesque rumours Needless to say that I should not defend any continuance of a duel were put in circulation. The fact that no one here of the marriage contract after divorce such as implied by the believed them did not prevent “Le Journal,” in journalistic section IV. (an undoubted flaw in the edict) now quoted by parlance, from “ splashing “ the “ story.” Mr. Angell will Senhor de Cunha. As for Professor Braga, even though no doubt find it if he looks up the back files of the paper the conventional utterances attributed to him are of more about that date. recent date than I was led to suppose, I can only say that So much for my critic’s second point. In reply to his a late repentance is better than none at all. So much, the more to his credit, indeed, if Braga has the courage of his final query, I may say that the “larger series of facts “ upon which I based my opinion of his book are also well convictions to openly throw over views so lately expressed founded. which he at present sees to be untenable. But I will now S. VERDAD. leave Senhor de Cunha to meditate on the political wisdom *“ * * he derives from Guizot and his like (not “commonplace “ this, I suppose ! Oh, dear, no !). A POINT OF VIEW. In reply to Mr. Collingwood, I may remind him that if Sir,-Perhaps Mr. S. Verdad will kindly explain how you THE NEW AGE has nothing in common with “Protestant “circulate a point of view.” Does the point revolve? It is Controversialists,” it is supposed to have just as little in difficult to see how it can, seeing it has no magnitude. But common with Catholic controversialists, and that the liberty then Mr. Verdad is a learned gentleman, and perhaps he is of calling a spade a spade has not as yet been editorially not writing commonplace English. decreed as the exclusive prerogative of the writer’s re- ARTHURRUSSELL. actionary article. [In reply to Mr. Russell, I beg to agree that some points E. BELFORT BAX. of view are indeed Euclidean in their non-magnitude--those *** held on Foreign Affairs at the National Liberal Club, for RURAL DEVELOPMENT. example. My own point of view, however, being a point Sir,-I have only just seen last weeks NEW AGE, and of view and not merely a point of view, is quite capable of circulating and being circulated. It will reach even Mr. write in haste for your issue of the 9th, because, with the of exception of the horse-breeding and educational schemes of Russell In the fulness of time.-& VERDAD.] the Development Commissioners, their policy is in a state of *** flux, and can be moulded by intelligent criticism rightly directed. This being so, while I should like to acknowledge REPUBLICANISM IN PORTUGAL. the sound lines of and the excellent information in “Avalon’s” Sir,-Senhor V. de Braganza Cunha thinks to damage the notes, I would remind him that it is dangerous to prophesy. present Republican regime in Portugal by endeavouring to This is especially the case with regard to afforestation. His- show that there are Republicans and Republican papers who suggestion that Development funds may be used for loans criticise details in the working of that régime, just as if to the large landowners, who usually control the policy of there had ever been any administration (lor could be such as the Government in this matter, is negatived by Sir Edward things are), however good on the whole, that is perfect, and Strachey, who, in reply to a question on February 16, stated therefore not open to criticism-fair or unfair. The fact “that loans to landowners for the purpose of enabling them that such criticism obtains shows that Portuguese Repub- to plant trees could not be made out of the Development licanism is a live thing, and not a cut-and-dried scheme rest- Fund.” Then, too, your contributor seems inclined to think ing on tradition and bureaucratic precedent. The Portu- that agricultural co-operation is the panacea. For the small guese population may not be able to support a Republican holder it is undoubtedly a necessity, but it has its limits and régime, but of this we have no evidence at present. If this even its dangers. It can only be expected to make headway were so, it need only mean the desirability of continuing amongst the larger farmers, where the markets are disorgan- the present dictatorship till a rational system of education ised. This may be so with regard to fruit, poultry and eggs, had begun to do its work. and in some counties dairy produce, but is not generally the Senhor de Braganza Cunha doesn’t like rational principles case with regard to the great agricultural staples. As for the applied to the sacred institutions of “marriage and the Department of Agriculture: the Tories know and won’t act; family.” Hence in the absence of argument to help himself the Liberals don’t know-usually they don’t wish to know- he has resort to abuse, and thinks to dismiss all allusion to and therefore cannot act with sense. The real control of them by calling such “a string of empty platitudes.’’ If the Department is therefore in the hands of a few, and by “platitudes ” he means “truisms,” I should be glad to much guided by backstairs influence. The fault of the think they could be regarded as such. For the Senhor, Liberal rank and file in this matter is that they are domi- however, they seem to be anything but truisms. Though I nated by the dog-in-the-manger school of tax the landlord could wish nothing better than that reasonable views on out-meanwhile do nothing for rural development lest he this subject had become trite and commonplace like the by any chance benefit. The consequence is that the Board Copernican theory or the law of gravitation, I fear unfor- of Agriculture would probably have no effective support if tunately such is not quite the case. And even if It it adopted a really progressive and forward policy-and were SO with mankind in general, much as I dislike talking great as its deficiencies may be it is at least probably better commonplaces, I could still plead that when gentlemen like than the party in power now deserves. The true policy, Senhor de Cunha are found to impugn these commonplaces therefore, is not to abuse the Board indiscriminately, but it may be sometimes necessary to re-affirm them--common endeavour to improve it, and bring intelligent pressure to places though they may be. bear on it so as either to strengthen or force its hand. In Senhor de Cunha kindly informs me that free views on his criticism of the Board “Avalon, ” seems to have been un- the subject of divorce were prevalent in later classical aware that excellent work has lately been dune in the direc- antiquity. I can “ go him ” one better than this, and recall tion of assisting co-operative, small holdings and other to his mind the fact that primitive human society did not societies. ARTHURP. GRENFELL. 452

THE REFERENDUM. Donisthorpe: Nonsense. Nothing of the kind. It’s your business to know. An idea! How perfectly prepos- Sir,-Perhaps the following may be accepted as my reply terous! Since when has it been the custom for gentle- to Mr. Donisthorpe. UPTON SINCLAIR. men to do anything of the sort? It would be contrary REFERENDUM. to the fundamental, principles of good breeding. It A Farce Comedy, in an Unlimited Number of Scenes. would be a violation of the British Constitution. It By Upton Sinclair. would be undermining the structure which our fathers have reared. It would be undemocratic. You, sir, are CHARACTERS. an expert. It is your business to make clothes. I know Wordsworth Donisthorpe, Esq. nothing about making clothes. Mrs. Wordsworth Donisthorpe Second Tailor (in terror) : But, sir, if I only knew -- First Tailor. Donisthorpe: It is your business to know. Second Tailor. Second Tailor : But how? SCENEI. Donisthorpe: I don’t know. You should be able to read it (Mr. Donisthorpe in his apartments. Enter first tailor.) in my countenance. You should know by the expression Donisthorpe: I wish to be clothed. of my eyes, by the tone of my voice, the colour of my First Tailor: Yes, sir. hair. Go away and try once more, and bring me a suit Donisthorpe: I wish to be well clothed. that will please me. First Tailor: Yes, sir. What kind of clothing do you wish ? Second Tailor: I am perfectly willing to try again, sir. Donisthorpe: I wish to be dressed like an English gentle- But this suit that I have made-it has cost me a great man. deal of time and money -- First Tailor: But, sir -- Donisthorpe: I care nothing about &at. Don’t speak of Donisthorpe: Go ahead. Make me my clothing. such vulgar things. I am an English gentleman-I First Tailor (looks at him in perplexity): Very well, sir. will pay you for your time, of course. But go again, (Takes measure. Exit.) and try to make me what I want. If you fail, I will call in the first tailor again. Taught by his previous SCENE II. blunder, he will surely be able to fit me now. And be (A week later. Mr. Donisthorpe in his apartments. Enter quick about it-I will have no more of your nonsense. First Tailor.) Bring me back a suit to please me within three days, or First Tailor: I have brought the clothing, sir. never more will You be permitted to do tailoring for Donisthorpe : Very well. me. (He drives him angrily out.) First Tailor (proceeds to unwrap them): You see, sir -- (he holds up a suit of brilliant scarlet cloth) [CURTAIN.] Donisthorpe (in alarm) : A red suit ! Why is that? The above farce-comedy continues, in an unlimited First. Tailor : Well, sir, you see, sir, you gave me no direc- number of scenes, regardless of expense and editorial space tions. I knew that you were a gentleman with Social- -until Mr. Donisthorpe gets a fit, and his wife ceases to get istic leanings. I used my best judgment -- one. It has now been played for one or two thousand years, Donisthorpe : hem! continuously, yet the victim’s costume was never less satis- First Tailor: Are YOU not pleased, sir? factory to him than it is at the present moment. Donisthorpe : Ahem ! If by any chance the victim should suddenly have his First Tailor (eyeing him a while in perplexity): I did my eyes opened concerning the unnecessary expensiveness of best, sir. I hope you will be pleased, sir. Good this procedure, let me call his attention to the way another morning. gentleman has of dealing with his tailors. The gentleman’s (Donisthorpe puts on the red suit. Enter Mrs. Donisthorpe.) name is Oregon State, one of the grandsons of an old party Mrs. Donisthorpe (in consternation) : Why, what’s this ? known as “Uncle Sam.” He has a contract with his tailors, Donisthorpe : My new suit which the tailor has just brought. known as Referendum , Initiative and Recall. According (Mrs. Donisthorpe says nothing, but immediately has a fit.) to the Referendum clause in this contract, the tailor writes [See Mr. Donisthorpe’s letter in THE NEW AGE for every now and then to Mr. Oregon State as follows:- January 26] “The time has come for you to order your winter costume. Donisthorpe (meditatively) : Ahem ! Evidently that won’t Please fill out the following blanks, informing me as to the do. I can’t wear this. I must get another. colour and kind of cloth, the style of cut, and the cost of the suits which you desire. I will then proceed to make them SCENE III. for you according to the measurements which I have in my (Mr. Donisthorpe in his apartments, clad in red suit. Enter records. According to the Initiative clause in our contract, Second Tailor.) if you do not like any of the colours or styles of cloth which Second Tailor : Good morning, sir. (Stares in amazement at you find listed in my blank, you may specify any other red suit.) style and colour which you prefer. According to the Recall Donisthorpe: I had this suit made, but I don’t like it. I clause in our contract, you have the right to visit our want something different. establishment at any time; and if for any reason you come Second Tailor : Yes, sir. What will you have, sir? to the conclusion that we are not preparing your suits Donisthorpe : I want something different. according to your orders and upon schedule time, then you Second Tailor: Yes, sir, but what will be the nature of the may take, the work away from us at once and turn it over change ? to some other tailor.” Donisthorpe : Don’t you understand me ? I tell you I want *+# something ‘different. Second Tailor (stares at him in perplexity for a while) : Very well, sir. I will do my best, sir. (Proceeds to measure Sir,-It will not do to let the readers of THE NEW AGE him.) Can’t you manage, sir, to ,give me any idea what believe that Mr. Upton Sinclair‘s artless utterances regard- ing the Referendum, Democracy, and “we in America,” it is that you would prefer ? adequately state the case for discerning Americans. These Donisthorpe: I want something different ; and I want to be well dressed. If you can’t please me, I will get some- measures were violently agitated, quinquennially, from I 890 body else. to 1905, but were abandoned as impractical by level-headed Second Tailor: Oh, sir, yes, sir. Very well, sir. (Exit.) thinkers. Of course, the party Socialists and other intole- rant “radical ” persons, having once incorporated the Initia- SCENE IV. tive and the Referendum in their articles of belief, would (Donisthorpe in his apartments, still in his red suit. Enter rather have a limb sawed off than one of these planks in Second Tailor.) their platform. More especially so, since they cherish an Second Tailor: I have brought your suit, sir. unshakable conviction that their pet remedies are the most Donisthorpe : Yes. advanced and loftiest steps towards genuine democracy. Second Tailor: I hope it will please you, sir. (Unwraps It is unfortunate and true that the United States has bundle, and discloses mourning costume of sombre hitherto been a sort of dumping ground for the diversified black.) superstitions of all the other countries on the globe, and Donisthorpe: But why so funereal? So utterly inappro- that these superstitions have actually been welcomed under priate to one of my merry disposition! the singular impression that they were the latest truths from [See Mr. Donisthorpe’s letter in THE NEW AGE for the European market. In spite of this fateful handicap, the January 26.] new ideas have begun to filter in. The discriminating now Second Tailor: I am very sorry, sir, but I did my best, sir. know that “government of the people, for the people, by Donisthorpe (angrily) : But have you no sense? Can’t you the people,” was one of Abe Lincoln’s unedited jokes, and see ? while cynical politicians can still lash the public to frenzied Second Tailor: But, sir, I asked you to give me some ,applause by trumpeting the old, rail-splitting catch-phrases, idea -- the number is increasing of those who stand apart from the Donisthorpe : But aren’t YOU a tailor? Don’t you know your hurly-burly and watch the democratic farce with a more and business? Why do You come to ask such questions of more mechanical laughter. me ? Mr. Sinclair announces that “ the Referendurn is squarely Second Tailor : But, sir, you might give me some idea -- a question of democracy. . .” Well, in so far as it squarely 453

is, it is perfectly useless here, and, thank Heaven, is not Dixon. It is characteristic, I have found, of puritans to attracting the slightest attention. Indeed, every critical attribute the worst motives to their critics-and who, indeed, observer of American conditions-except “Juvenal ’’ and Mr. should know better ? Mr. Stead unblushingly misquotes Sinclair-knows that equality, democracy, the Referendum, my plea for the legalisation of abortion as a “psea for the and other visionary abstractions and constitutional panaceas perpetuation of the crime of abortion.” The perpetuation are by no means pressing issues in the United States. It is of the crime of abortion needs no plea from me, nor did true that we are growing intensely interested in matters of it receive one. I defy any experienced person to deny either immediate municipal concern. Civism, or civic passion, is that abortion is a common practice, or that the practice even developing in some cities. But no person, whose wits cannot be stopped by making it criminal. All you do when are not in his woolsack, regards State or national projects you make an ineradicable practice criminal is to ensure for democracy with any emotion other than derisive amuse- that it will be carried on under the worst conditions. By ment. We do not want more democracy, we want more of legalising abortion, we could on the other hand ensure that the brutal necessities of life. We do not care three straws only skilled and responsible medical men were employed. about equality; we want lower rents, higher wages and But apparently Mr. Stead is satisfied with the present disas- decenter conditions of work and living. It is no argument trous state of things. to say that the Initiative and Referendum are going to As for Mr. Chalmers Dixon, if he has not “the sheer gratify these desires. The fact is that the Referendum has effrontery ” to discuss my views with me, I do not desire to already been frequently employed in the American States- surpass him in this quality. And fortunately, if I did, he and no progress has resulted except the unimpeded and un- has expressed no views worth discussing. varying progress of Capitalistic power. It is impossible to EUGENIST. minutely recite the ins and outs of Referendum legislation *** in those Western States where it has been more liberally used than in the East. It would perhaps be unfair to con- “ WOMAN AND LABOUR.” demn the instrument unqualifiedly, because it has not pro- Sir,-I have not yet read Olive Schreiner’s “Woman and duced the slightest elevation in the average level of human Labour,’’ but I have read the unsigned review of the book well-being in the West. The one noticeable change it has in the last number of THE NEW AGE, and I should like effected, however, is in the character of new legislation. Ex- briefly to review the review. It is necessary because in a treme measures, in no matter what direction, have been column of argument your reviewer replies to an interpreta- severely and impartially turned down when submitted to the tion of the author’s meaning which, to me, is not warranted Referendum. This instrument of reform thus promises to by the quotations given. adapt itself admirably to the great basic principle of lower It seems that Olive Schreiner says somewhere in her book middle-class conduct: when in doubt, do nothing. In an (what the context is I do not know) that the endeavour of Eastern State, that of New York, numerous amendments to women should be “towards a higher appreciation of the the Constitution have been submitted to a referendum vote sacredness of all sex-relations.” This your reviewer con- since 1845, not to mention the adoption by this method of a siders (‘an unnecessary, a reactionary, and indeed, an incon- %rand-new Constitution in 1894. Will Mr. Sinclair assert sistent addition ” to the author’s subsequent advice that that a citizen of New York ln 1911is any better off or any “women should take all labour for their province.’’ He nearer democracy than his forerunner in 1845 ? I venture to thinks it indicates a setting of “sex in the first place in their say that he won’t. What practical advantages has the inno- (women’s) scale of values “; and if they do this, he says, they vation brought us then? None that I or anyone else can can’t succeed seeing that “intellectual man at any rate” point to. Perhaps Mr. Sinclair ascribes to the Referendum has only succeeded (‘by lowering his appreciation of the that “ newly-awakened popular impulse ” on which his letter sacredness of sex relations.” heavily leans I can assure him, however, that the newly- awakened popular impulse has been the only begetter of The women’s movement, in its various manifestations, the same old double-faced hullabaloo. Witness the last owes its impetus to woman’s deep-seated dissatisfaction with presidiential election, in which Bryan and Free Trade were that very scale of values which says that for woman “sex ” rejected in favour of Taft and Protection, the greater nin- shall be the first consideration, and that all her energies compoop and the unspeakably viler policy. Again, the shall be directed into this one channel. If your reviewer had 1910election in the State of New York saw the Executive had the sympathy to remember this (for I feel sure he knows candidate of the least insufferable faction of the Republican it) it might have been obvious that Olive Schreiner’s mean- machine conclusively beaten by Murphy-the-Tammany- ing was very possibly not that suspected by her reviewer; or Chieftain’s vest-pocket favourite, Dix. And now the entire at least that she wasn’t blindly substituting a new con- oligarchic press-abetted by Mr. Sinclair, who might reason- spiracy for the old. ably be expected to know better-is noisily hailing the Consciously, or unconsciously, your reviewer is dealing “newly, etc., impulse “ ! with two sets of terms at once when he uses the word-phrase After all, not logical argument but plain sense urges ‘‘lowering ” in opposition to the “higher ” of the quotation : most tellingly against the Initiative and the Referendum. hence the ambiguity of meaning that was puzzling enough These measures depend for their success upon the dis- at first sight. criminating ability of the people, and discrimination is a What your reviewer means is associated with his assertion quality the people themselves would repudiate with scorn. that for men “sex is a diversion, a nuisance, an art, or it may We know that the voters usually select the inferior man, be a duty.” Olive Schreiner’s train of thought is indicated applaud the baser cause, and extend their approval to no by passages quoted referring to parenthood and mother- .person or principle that ever stands above the plane of hood; but I dare warrant that her conclusion is the same as respectable mediocrity. It is in vain, therefore, that the your reviewer‘s: that sex must cease to be first in woman’s Referendum is warranted to give the people what they want scale of values. when they want it. Besides, the people seldom want any- Now where, I should like to know, is the question of thing, and when by chance they do, it is always something mutual exclusiveness? Why, on such data as given, should irreconcilably opposed to what the leaders want-not the Olive Schreiner have fallen foul of the reviewer who thus nominal leaders, but the race pioneers who, since “civilisa- finds her “remedy “ “condemned to our mind at the outset”? tion” began, have been trying to lead men out of savagery. It will be a nice problem for solution when the book itself Let no one be deceived by Mr. Sinclair’s well-meant en- comes into my hands. thusiasm for “underrated electorates ” (is it possible to Meanwhile I am thinking of the latent possibilities of underrate them?). The situation, for America, is clear. If your reviewer’s criticisms, and this is where I get so far:- the scope of the Referendum is extended, the result will It does not follow (however intellectual I may happen to be to dissipate the (unpopular) energies now hopefully con- be) that by adopting an attitude ‘of amused contempt, or of verging to remedy civic, I might say bouse-to-house, evils contemptuous indifferentism, or of indifferent boredom, to- and wrongs. Like the ill wind, the reform will blow nobody wards what is commonly understood or misunderstood as any good except the politicians. They will duly adopt it, ‘(sex,” that I solve the individual riddle. The whole question will coddle it as tenderly as they did the universal male hangs on what I and my calling may be. So for others. suffrage abortion, and will privately clink their glasses over Nor on the other plane of argument does it follow that by another Heaven-sent device for letting people talk them- a “higher appreciation of the sacredness of all sex relations,” I selves into a muddled obliviousness of the shaky little lose sight for one moment of conditions determining success Raft of State and of the very substantial Graft of State. when woman takes all labour for her province. It certainly As an American who has observed the Referendum in use, does not follow that I am putting sex-considerations in the and who believes that, in point of sheepish intelligence, first place there is not much to choose between electorates anywhere in The only “true solution of the women’s problem” that I the Western world, I cannot conscientiously recommend it to know of is to give women absolute freedom of choice to be Englishmen. what they are; whether it be doctors, or barristers, or FELIXGRENDON. mothers, or artists or anything else. Division of labour, sur- **+ vival (or victory) of the fittest, and other discoveries of ‘(in- THE CENSORSHIP OF LITERATURE. tellectual man ” may safely be left on guard here, as in the Sir-I have little to add, in my defence, to your editorial sphere of men ; and if “mother-hunger ” be present too- reply to the letters of Mr. W. T. Stead and Mr. Chalmers well, frankly, I don’t see that that will militate against ulti- 454

mate success any more than father-hunger does in the case 2. “What jecame of these gifts? ” They were probably of the man-doctor, the man-barrister, the man-artist. spent. There’s really no rule in such matters. 3. The honours he received were the “Commands” But I will, with your permission, write again after reading (throughout the life of Elizabeth, and afterwards continued “ Woman and Labour”; and perhaps I haven’t glimpsed by James I.) to perform at court. Publishers’ advertisements YOUR reviewer after all. on the title--pages of quarto editions of the plays, published MARYGAWTHORPE. during Shakespeare’s lifetime--“ Love’s Labour Lost ’’ : “ as *** it was presented before His Highness this last Christmas.” “Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor ”: THEOLOGY. “divers times acted both before Her Majesty,” etc. “King Sir,-I am wry glad your correspondent, Mr. Elliott, has Lear”. “as it was played before the King’s Majesty at written his letter, though it is rather dispiriting, as it Whitehall,” etc. shows that I have failed to convey my meaning. I had 4. The gifts were cited in the manuscript account of the hoped that I had made it clsear-indeed, I was afraid I had “Treasurer of the Chamber,” now in the Public Record laboured the point-that I was deliberately choosing a Office in London. geometrical scheme of the universe, and this for various I am indebted for these facts to Mr. Sidney Lee, who, I reasons. It is the scheme which was used by the ancients. make bold to say, is as trustworthy an authority as any It is the only scheme which we can think about. It is in Mrs. Nesbit cites. good contrast with the “ anthropomorphic.” Also it serves May I strengthen a point in my letter by evincing that not well, I think, for arranging various items of knowledge a single MS. of the work of Jane Austen has survived? which we possess. No doubt we may consider a line as a In conclusion, I thank Sir Edward Durning Lawrence series of points, but it is then a dead and dissected line; for the able way in which he has controverted Mrs. Nesbit’s directly we think of the series as a series we put life into it. plea that Milan is not a port. My cosmos, in these articles, is a mechanical scheme of E. H. VISIAK. waves, but if anyone will take the trouble to think about it P.S.--I did not mean to complain in my letter that Shake- in the right way he will put life into it. How much life de- speare represented Verona and Milan as inland cities-which pends on the thinker himself. of course they are. I meant to point out that he represents I am quite ready to admit what I fancy is at the bottom Valentine, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,’’ as travel- of Mr. Elliott’s objection-it may be unconsciously--namely, ling from Verona to Milan by sea, and the fact that Prospero that I am talking about phenomena and not about noumena. in “ The Tempest ” embarks at the gates of Milan. What has There is a great difference between the old and new methods. Mrs. Nesbit to say to this?--E.H.V. The ancients were much less prone than the moderns to ** * accept the unknown for the noumenal, but having accepted a noumenon they did not try to talk about it and give it Sir,-It is a stale trick of controversy to describe an names, seeing that to do so was to vitiate their acceptance opponent’s heart-felt views as “satire.” That is what Mr. of it as a noumenon. Love, however large YOU write it, is Visiak did when, as I have just discovered, he said that no more a noumenon than is motion; it is a much misused my “satire on Sir Durning Lawrence is capital.” word which, owing to the misuse, has acquired a vagueness Why does Mr. Visiak not admit that my proof is un- of meaning which to the modern mind suggests its fitness to answerable, namely, that “If Jon. is bald, Bacon writt this”? But I have a good deal to But I have further anagrammatical proofs. With regard be accepted as a noumenon. to Jonson: say about “Love ” later on. (i)“O, rare Ben Jonson”--NO ’AIR ROSE ON BEN. No doubt motion as we ordinarily use the word is a (ii.) “Titus Andronicus ”-JON’S ’AIR CUTT SUDN. spatially limited idea. The metaphysical minds of the (iii.) (a) Sonnets-TEN IS JON. ancients, as of some modems, too, recognised that activity must be more fundamental than space or time, and hence (b) “ Winter’s Tale ”-TEN’S REAL WIT. not necessarily manifested either as movement or change. These obviously refer to the phrase in ‘the tenth Sonnet: But since our language and thought is spatially limited it Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate.” (iv.) “ Troilus and Cressida”--JONS. CUTS REAL HAIRS. is no use pretending that we can think of, or talk about, activity except as motion or change of some kind. I have With regard to my reasons for unmasking “Shake- speare’’ :-- been taking in my articles what may be called a practical view, and have regarded man as relatively stationary, and (i) “ Paradise Lost ”-DO STEAL PRAIS. the universe as moving. Mr. Elliott, as I understand him, (ii.) “Two Gentlemen of Verona ”-FAME NEVER WENT would prefer to regard the universe as standing still, and TOO LONG. man as moving (or changing). There is not much to *choose A proof of Bacon’s cleverness and humour is:- between the two views, but if there is anything to choose “Much Ado about Nothing”-OH DAMN BACON HOG- I prefer my own. For if the universe is stationary, then WITT. moving (or changing) man must be regarded either as A piece of encouragment to vegetarians: outside the universe, or as a more or less solitary excep- ‘‘Romeo and Juliet ’,-O. DURN OILI MEAT. tion. Either of which things may be true, but are quite Now, Sir Edward Durning Lawrence, Bart., says in the unproven, whereas from the other standpoint man need first chapter of his masterpiece that Bacon predicted that only be regarded as relatively stationary, which involves no the mystery would be solved in 1910. I worked all this out discontinuity. Moreover, to postulate that the universe Last year. I will conclude with my young Baconian friend’s remarks : “works “ in the way which I am supposing is no more foolish than, to postulate that it works in any other way, but, as I Professor Owen have suggested and shall further elaborate, the better solu- Will soon be showin’ tion is to learn from the vital side how man’s own microcosm That Bacon was Spenser an’ Marlowe, too. works. M.B. OXON. Yet Visiak, the ’eathen, *** It seems, don’t believe in What Mr. Owen’s goin’ to do. BACON=SHAKESPEARE, C. E. BECHHÖFER. Sir,-Mrs. Nesbit is generous with her advice. In a former discussion on the subject in THENEW AGE she ad- ** * vised a disputant to read Bacon’s New Atlantis.” Taking the hint, I re-read that work. I found nothing in it, how- SACERDOTAL PRIVILEGES. ever, but what I vaguely remembered-Utopian and scien- Sir,-I observe that a zealous ultra-Protestant, signing tific imaginings: Bacon’s mind, as manifested in the Essays himself “An Eclectic Philosopher,” is trying to boom the “ Convent Inspection” agitation in your pages. and the “ Advancement of Learning,’’ working in the medium of a “romance,” a “romance ” possessing no grain of the He suggests that electoral pressure is the cause of the effulgent quality of romance that charms us in Shakespeare’s failure of the Orange and Nonconformist fanatics to force “Tempest.” Thus disappointed, I feel the less inclined to this question to the front. A much more potent cause is the follow the advice that Mrs. Nesbit has vouchsafed to me character and methods of the anti-convent agitators them- personally. selves, For example, immediately before the last general Mrs. Nesbit takes two points of all those I offered in my election they got hold of an ex-jailbird, dressed him up in letter, with a fine flouncing air, as who should say, That’s an absurd travesty of the monastic habit, and sent him on all the time I can spare you; and you may think yourself a lecturing tour through the mining district of Lanarkshire, lucky to be given so much.” My time, however, being far where he related his imaginary experiences in a nonexistent less valuable than Mrs. Nesbit’s, I will reply to all her monastery to audiences of sniggering lads and girls. I may questions herewith :- add that this man has been described(for good reasons) in I. The gifts that Shakespeare (or Shaksper) received from the columns of your contemporary, Truth,’’ as an “un- Elizabeth were: £13 6s. 8d. paid by the royal treasurer to speakable scoundrel.” Another of these gentry was recently Shakespeare and his two fellow actors who had performed described in the same organ as a “dissolute rascal,’’ and he one Comedy or Interlude “ on Boxing Day, 1594, and also took no steps to clear his character. A third who had another two days later. To this sum the Queen added worked up a good business in the “convent inquiry” line in £6 13s. 4d. as a personal expression of her satisfaction. the south of Scotland, was identified as an ex-mendicant 455

Who had posed for many years outside Bow Church as a bogus paralytic. A fourth, who once had a great reputation A DICKENS LIBRARY in Liverpool, disappeared in consequence of a successful FOR A LITTLE OVER affiliation case brought against him by a young woman whom he had seduces. A fifth, who had been taken up by A HALFPENNY A DAY some Scotch “NO Popery ’’ organisation, found himself “taken up ” in another sense in consequence of his having deserted his Wife and children, whilst he himself was living “ Dickens taught us how to laugh. A real laugh at any literary product is with a drunken concubine in a low part of Glasgow. TO almost the rarest luxury that you can fanatics like your correspondent, nourished probably on the en j oy.”--lord Rosebery. “Awful Adventures of Maria Monk,” all this is of very 1/6 little consequence, but I can assure him that it has con- A COMPLETE SET OF siderable weight with the average voter, who is beginning to consider the term anti-convent lecturer as synonymous with humbug. *** ANTI-CANT. DICKENS POETRY AND AGNOSTICISM-A REJOINDER., IN 34 VOLUMES Sir,---I would venture to lay before Mr. Kerr the proposi- Delivered carriage paid, on a first payment of tion that all true poets, such as those he mentions, are, of necessity, religionists, and hence must make towards the EIGHTEENPENCE. reconstruction and regeneration, not the destruction, of Reli- HARLES DICKENS’S WORKS gion. I purposely spell the word with a capital letter, to the most popular series of novels; distinguish it from the scaffolding which we call the reli- in the English language are now offered by “The Daily Chronicle,, gions of the world. on the easy instalment system Is not a poet, sir, one who by union with his higher if not at a price that brings them cosmic consciousness (which we call genius) obtains a wider within reach of the humblest purse. outlook upon the Unseen and the Eternal, and thus is he The books are printed on good not a witness to the existence of those things which will paper, in large type that adds so never pass, because they are the Eternal verities? much to the pleasure ofreading a good story I would only instance Shelley’s ‘‘Prometheus Unbound,” a They are fully illustrated from work so far in advance of the Christianity of his day, as to the original drawings of Bar- nard and other great contem- be unrecognisable as a Christian masterpiece. porary Dickens artists. Mr. Kerr alludes to the widespread reading of the They are bound in artistic Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Is it not allowable to see in paper covers, embellished with striking illustrations in colour. this masterpiece of Sufism or of Sufic mysticism, a mystic To secure the complete set at once, you have but to fill trace of the very purest and simplest religion, teaching the UP the annexed order form and forward it with a postal inadequacy of human teaching, the necessity of Divine in- order for 1/6 to the publishers. struction, the unfailing supply of the wine of spiritual The Manager, “THEDAILY CHRONICLE’’ (Dickens Dept ). knowledge for those who will press the grape? Salisbury Square, London. Please send me, carriage paid, your ‘‘ People’s Dickens ” for which I No, sir, wherever there is ecstasy, whether in Swinburne enclose a first instalment of 1/6. I agree to complete tepurchase by or in Rabelais, you have the testimony to the Divine Rap- sending eleven successive monthly payments of 1/6 each. ture, to the “terrible initiatory caress of God.” Just as, NAME ...... wherever you have a love story, from the story of Eros and Psyche down, to the latest novel-you have evidence of the ADDRESS ...... rapturous union of the lower with the higher self, to which A.F.9 ...... all inspiration, whether of prose or poetry, bears witness. If I might venture to say so, without incurring the charge of polemic retort, I would rather think that the last words would be, not those quoted as of Mr. Swinburne, but those THE INQUIRER traditionally recorded of the Emperor Julian, Vicisti, Galilae ! ’’ which may indeed be rendered in Mr. Swin- burne’s own words, ‘‘ Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean” (Hymn to Proserpine, 1. 35). F. G. MONTAGUPOWELL. A WEEKLY REVIEW OF LIBERAL RELIGION, *** LITERATURE, AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. IT is the object of ThInquirer to promote the liberal movement in A COLONIAL SCHEME. religion, to provide a common platform for the discussion of problems Sir,-It is very evident that modern civilisation gives of Religious Thought and Social Ethics unhampered by the authority of dogma, and to keep its readers in touch with the movement of liberal ample opportunity to life based upon commercial principles religious life and thought at home and abroad, and virtues, and tends ever more and more to make com- Among recent Contributions are the following. mercial efficiency and success the aim of its culture and the THE PROMINENCE OF PREACHING. Rev. J. M.Lloyd Thomas. test of its policy. It fails, however, to give freedom to and THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMORTALITY. Rev. Dr. Dawes Hicks. even paralyses those who from tradition and temperament Rev. Dr. J. Estlin Carpenter, are unable to regard the accumulation of wealth and its THE CHRIST MYTH. { Rev. K. C. Anderson. spending in pleasure and charity, or an attempt to succeed A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE. Professor Eucken. in these aims, as a satisfactory stimulus and basis to life. COMING OF WINTER. Rev. P. L. Jacks (Editor HibbertJournal) The submission to conditions which are repugnant to them KESHUB CHUNDER SEN, Professor T. L. Vaswani. on the part of many capable and intellectual people of taste can only be accounted for on their inability to conceive of Specimen Copy sent post free onapplication to the any other issue to the peculiarly insuperable circumstances PUBLISHER, 3, ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. of their lives. After a study of many countries and diverse Every Friday, One Penny. Subscription, 6/6 per year. conditions of life, I fail to share this view. I have found, as ~~ all students must find, that great civilisations have never been dominated by commercial considerations ; and that there is another and definite basis of society, which offers CONCENTRATE no insuperable difficulties to its establishment at the present time. I believe that in a fertile land a colony could be started which, based upon agriculture, would express its sur- plus power in art and in the mastery of life, in place of the hustling and confusion of competitive commerce. I believe that a few people of culture and determination could inau- gurate such a system. Throughout the world’s history colo- nies, founded on definite principles, have been formed and have flourished. The Grecian colonies in Italy and the Saxon colonies in Northern America are notable examples. Such colonies were founded by associations of people shar- NEW CATALOGUE,No. 375. February. ing certain general principles. Nevertheless, Sir, I feel the NOW READY, oddness of my appeal, and that many will regard it as Utopian, yet I cannot trespass farther on your space than PUBLISHERS’ REMAINDERS. with this bare statement. Should any of your readers be dis- posed to communicate with me, I should be glad to give Books in Great Variety at much Reduced Prices. them a more detailed account of my propositions. WILLIAM GLAISHER, LTD., 265, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, G. T. WRENCH. AIso a Useful Catalogue of Current Popular Literature. University House, Victoria Park Square, N.E. 456

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